I really do understand that the drugs give them hope against what feels like a food addiction. Been there, still wearing a lot of the evidence - and it really is a food addiction, an addiction to the wrong kinds of foods.
The problem is that so few doctors and weight loss programs will suggest anything other than cutting calories by avoiding fats, eating only minimal amounts of protein, and filling up on carbs. Even if the carbs they encourage (fruits, veggies, whole grains) supposedly have a glow of health, anyone whose metabolism has already been messed up by the addictive nature of carbs (resulting in over-consumption of carbs) can still easily kick off addictive eating patterns again while sticking to the "legal" carby foods: whole grains, fruits and veggies (especially starchy veggies and high sugar fruits).
Low carb diets of all kinds have been continually denounced as ineffective, dangerously unhealthy (especially long term), too restrictive, and simply far too difficult to stick to. It's not just the WW point system - all major diets are based on the same premise of calories in, calories out. None of them take into consideration the addictive aspect of a diet based mostly on carbs.
The weight loss drugs are the first thing on the market that takes on the food addiction problem, even though they're not calling it that. And unfortunately those drugs are also not doing anything at all to reverse the addiction - all they do is make it impossible for the patient to consume much food at all while on the drug, and often create such an aversion to meat and fats of any kind that all they can eat is the same carbs that they've been addicted to for decades, just in smaller amounts so that they end up losing weight. The addiction is still there - and will still be there when they go off the drugs.
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And it will be. So long as people are only willing to change if they don't really change. They will spend the money and make the effort if they are promised magic.
When the real magic is how our body works when we actually work with it.
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Unfortunately most people don't have a clue how their body really works, and what their body really needs to work well. And a lot of them don't care - they just want to lose weight the easiest way possible.
That situation is getting worse. It doesn't much matter if WW sells weight loss drugs in conjunction with their points system, or just sticks to their points system, because with or without the weight loss drugs, it's all still based on calories in/calories out, and it doesn't matter if you "save your points for wine", or if you're eating pretzels and crackers on the drugs because you can't stomach anything else - it's still a low fat, high carb diet, and it's only a temporary weight "fix".