There were around 4,000 prescriptions for weight loss drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic written for U.S. patients between the ages of 12 and 18 in 2023, alone, NBC News reported Feb. 21.
A growing number of medical providers, pediatric patients and their parents are embracing the anti-obesity medications, citing that they not only help with physical symptoms, but can boost mental health in some instances.
Treatment for childhood obesity using Wegovy was approved by the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2022. The condition affects nearly 20% of U.S. children, according to the CDC, and often causes other adverse health conditions including Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma, joint problems and more.
But some physicians are continuing to push back on the guidelines from the AAP and on giving these prescriptions to children in general.
Dan Cooper, MD, a pediatric pulmonologist at University of California Irvine Health, was a co-author of an August 2023 paper published in the Journal of Clinical and Translational Science, which advocates for closer scrutiny on the adverse effects of these drugs when taken by children. It notes that while the growth of these drugs is inevitable, "little attention has been paid to the possible unintended consequences or adverse impact of these medications on children and adolescents during their critical period of growth and development."
"We wrote this paper to kind of say, 'Hey, let's think about these things before we just started prescribing these medications for kids," Dr. Cooper told NBC News.