Experts urge caution over drug company campaigns to destigmatize obesity
· Medical Xpressedited by Sadie Harley, reviewed by Andrew Zinin
Sadie Harley
Scientific Editor
Meet our editorial team
Behind our editorial process
Andrew Zinin
Chief Editor
Meet our editorial team
Behind our editorial process Editors' notes
This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:
fact-checked
peer-reviewed publication
trusted source
proofread
The GIST Add to Preferred Sources
We should be wary of campaigns by pharmaceutical companies to destigmatize obesity, say experts in The BMJ. Michael Viggars and colleagues argue that, while destigmatizing obesity is the right thing to do, there is a risk that companies profiting from obesity treatment come to influence public conversation and national policy.
They point to Eli Lilly's U.K. "Obesity Is a Disease" campaign, which explains that obesity is a complex disease rather than a failure of willpower, that the body can resist weight loss, and that people who have struggled for years deserve compassion, not blame.
Advertisements invite people to check their body mass index, answer a few questions and prepare for a conversation with a doctor, nurse or pharmacist. Although drugs are not mentioned, the campaign is by a pharmaceutical company whose drug tirzepatide is now a principal treatment for obesity.
Almost everything the campaign says about stigma is true, note the authors. The framing is at once scientifically defensible and commercially useful, and that convergence, they say, is exactly what makes it harder to criticize.
"This is what the commercial determinants of health look like in their subtlest form," they argue. "We spot commercial influence far less readily when it arrives wrapped in the language of compassion and destigmatization that public health has spent years cultivating."
The risk is not mainly that more people will be prescribed weight loss drugs; for eligible patients that is a clear benefit, they write. The risk is that it endorses a clinical-first approach to obesity that narrows the field of action.
If obesity is understood primarily as a disease awaiting clinical intervention, responsibility and resources may drift away from its upstream causes including poor urban planning, the food environment, deprivation and marketing, they explain. "Obesity treatment and prevention may be quietly recast as only a personal, medical matter rather than a collective responsibility."
Addressing this requires us to balance two perspectives: that destigmatizing obesity is the right thing to do and that we should be wary of the vested interest pharmaceutical companies have in tackling that stigma, they write.
"Regulators should be willing to test the principles and identify the limits of the code by reference to campaigns like this one by a manufacturer, not only in relation to the pharmacies, clinics or influencers selling or promoting the drugs," they conclude.
Publication details
We should be wary of campaigns by pharmaceutical companies to destigmatise obesity, The BMJ (2026). DOI: 10.1136/bmj-2026-101360
Journal information: British Medical Journal (BMJ)
Key medical concepts
ObesitySocial StigmaTirzepatide
Clinical categories
Weight managementPreventive medicine Provided by British Medical Journal Who's behind this story?
Sadie Harley
BSc Life Sciences & Ecology. Microbiology lab background with pharmaceutical news experience in oil, gas, and renewable industries. Full profile →
Andrew Zinin
Master's in physics with research experience. Long-time science news enthusiast. Plays key role in Science X's editorial success. Full profile →
Citation: Experts urge caution over drug company campaigns to destigmatize obesity (2026, November 11) retrieved 12 November 2026 from https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-11-experts-urge-caution-drug-company.html This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.