alt Hacker News> the "underlying issue" is fundamentally just being too hungry for how they live
operative phrase in that sentence "how they live". They need to live more active lives. And that's better than a weight loss drug because inactivity causes systemic disease beyond weight gain.
GLP-1 drugs do to hunger what pain meds do to pain, but if you're overweight and your back is aching because you're sedentary the solution isn't a cocktail of drugs, it's to get off your ass, because that lifestyle is going to cause you biomechanical, metabolic and even cognitive issues down the road.
There's disease you can't do anything about and need to treat with medicine, but if you're experiencing symptoms because your lifestyle is abusing your body change your life. There'll come a moment where there's no wonder pill to fix your issues and in that moment you're better of if you know how to actually get control of yourself. Which most import of all is going to give you the confidence that you can change. You don't want to be 50 years old and your only cope in life is praying that a pharma company mutes whatever symptoms plague you.
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Unfortunately the reason many live sedentary lives is indirectly a result of broader societal conditions. The trend towards a more sedentary society is not a coincidental individual failing of millions of people. It is because our economies and our built environment contributed to it.
> They need to live more active lives.
When I become more active, I also become more hungry due to the extra energy consumption. The net effect is little weight loss and more often than not weight gain. While being physically active is beneficial to health in many ways, it does little for losing or maintaining weight, at least for me.
It's great to be active, but there's more to it than that, namely that our modern world has highly engineered our food to be highly energy-dense and incredibly appealing. So the root cause is an evolutionary mismatch with our environment, which has diverged incredibly from early humans. Expecting an individual to overcome won't generally work, since their brains are simply wired for it. Sure there are some people who can simply choose to ignore the fast food place at every corner and go to the gym via willpower alone, but they are exceptional in their brain's capacity for executive control.
Personally, I look at GLP-1 agonists akin to wearing glasses. Some people are just born without the ability to regulate their appetite in accordance with our society, but there is a tool / prosthetic to change that. That said, it's not one or the other, it's always great to be more active.