PepsiCo, the international food conglomerate, reported last month that the company’s North American snacks business, which makes Doritos, Cheetos, and Lay’s potato chips, saw a 3% dip (pun intended) in sales volume in the quarter ended Dec. 28.
Smuckers, which owns the Hostess brand that makes the iconic Twinkies, also reported a decline in the volume of its products sold in 2024.
We don’t think it is a coincidence that Americans have been consuming less junk food ever since the FDA approved the use of the GLP-1 drugs made by pharmaceutical giants Eli Lilly (Zepbound ) and Novo Nordisk (Wegovy).
These drugs (under their other brand names, Mounjaro and Ozempic) initially were approved to treat diabetes. But it soon became clear that in addition to treating that disease, there was another big benefit: Patients were losing significant amounts of weight.
It has only been a couple of years since these drugs were approved for weight loss, but it would appear that our nation’s non-stop, upward trend of ever-increasing obesity finally has been reversed. According to recently-released statistics, the obesity rate in the United States decreased for the first time in over a decade, from 46% in 2022 to 45.6% in 2023.
Users of these drugs report a suppression of their appetite and a decrease in their cravings for junk foods of all kinds, not just Doritos and Twinkies. (We also would note that users of GLP-1 drugs report a decrease in many other forms of addictive behavior, including gambling, drugs, and alcohol abuse.)
We hasten to point out that a direct link between the GLP-1 drugs and the national reduction in weight has not been shown, but the trends, in our view, are unmistakable. To paraphrase Bob Dylan, we don’t need a double-blind study to tell us which way the obesity trend will be heading with the widespread adoption of the GLP-1 drugs.
As we wrote in this space a few weeks ago, we believe that GLP-1 drugs, which are incredibly expensive, should be covered by health insurance so that they can become affordable for all Americans, not just the wealthy.
Obesity is the leading cause of a multitude of diseases in this country and not making the GLP-1 drugs affordable for all Americans is penny-wise and pound-foolish (pun intended).