The diet business is rebuilding itself around 3 million prescriptions a month

At least 3 million prescriptions a month for GLP-1 medicines were written in the United States over the 12 months that ended in March, and the companies built on eating less have reorganized around that number. WeightWatchers, founded in 1963, acquired a telehealth provider so members could get prescriptions. The Mayo Clinic diet book, first published in 1949, now has a weight-loss medications edition.

Arithmetic explains the scramble. About a third of people lose 5% or more of their body weight through diet and exercise alone, while the medicine in Mounjaro helped people with obesity lose at least a quarter of their weight when paired with restricted calories and exercise. Morgan Stanley analysts estimate 24 million Americans, or 7% of the population, will be on these drugs by 2035, and the food industry is already reformulating around a smaller appetite.

Cost decides who gets in at all: a month of Zepbound is priced at $1,000, and some doctors worry about clinics with no obesity experience writing prescriptions and coaching people through them. That does not mean the industry is being redesigned around patients. A program built for members who can pay and a program built for health look identical in an advertisement, and telling them apart is now the work.

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