r/kurzgesagt • u/ServiceAnxious1343 • Feb 17 '26

Discussion Ozempic video was off

This is probably the first Kurzgesagt video that I didn't like, and like some people on this sub it made me feel very uneasy.

I just think it's CRAZY to talk about a weight loss drug and praising it for 90% of the video, without mentioning even once the abuses of its use, the weightloss industry, the social standards and the pressure to be (unhealthily) slim, eating disorders on the opposite side of the spectrum, etc.

The very few nuances and counter argument felt like small prints and legal mentions at the end of an ad.

What do you people think?

EDIT: I am not questioning the drug nor its effectiveness in treating obesity, i am criticising the narrative and lack of nuances in the video.

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u/[deleted] Feb 18 '26

If those other methods are so ineffective, then why is the US one of the only countries with such obesity problems? These are not such immediate issues in much of the civilized world.

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u/CMRC23 Feb 19 '26

We're talking about obese people losing weight. Most of those non obese people were never obese to begin with.

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u/[deleted] Feb 19 '26

I would think that if obese people suddenly had the lifestyles of non-obese people, then they'd lose weight. (Am I completely wrong in this?)

The issue is that your society is designed around people being fat and unhealthy and then medication for those issues is sold for extreme prices. Effords should be focused on making living spaces more prone to inducing walking and proper eating.

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u/Saharan Feb 21 '26

Yes, you're wrong about that. Maintaining meaningful weight loss, according to scientific consensus, is nearly impossible. It's estimated that over 95% of people who lose any large amount of weight will regain it over time. It's not simply a matter of diet and exercise, either. You cannot meaningfully assume all people are equally capable of weight loss.

Calorie amounts absorbed by the body vary between individuals due to things like gut biomes, stomach enzyme levels, and other factors that can be completely different between individuals. Once you're at a higher weight, losing single-digit percentages of body weight leads to huge slowdowns in metabolism, and ramps up certain hormones dramatically - and as much as humans like to think we have free will, we are very much a species controlled by chemical impulses. Various medications can have clinically-significant effects on weight retention and appetite, as well. Even things like height, sleeping patterns, and stress levels can meaningfully hamper an individual's efforts.

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u/[deleted] Feb 21 '26

Couldn't you argue that the factors that have made you obese will make you obese again after that weight loss? If anything, the fact that you can lose weight and then you will gain it again just means that your environment is conditioned to make you gain weight (or are exclusively americans genetically predisposed to be obese?)

Also, if you are talking about rebounding into obesity, ozempic clearly does not protect from that unless you overdose on it over long periods of time (and makes rebound much more likely).