Quick fix for obesity is favoured

Published on 29/03/2011 15:41

PRESCRIPTIONS for drugs to treat obesity increased by almost a fifth in Scotland last year.

A total of 134,491 items were prescribed during 2009-10 - an increase of 21,126 prescriptions (18.6 per cent) over the previous year.

The amount of money spent on these drugs also increased from 4.04 million to 4.64m between 2008-9 and 2009-10.

Tam Fry, from the Child Growth Foundation and National Obesity Forum, said: "Obesity is still rising and therefore drug treatment will be rising.

"But perhaps the use of drugs will be rising slightly faster because people are getting more anxious about losing weight.

"The time it would take if you were going to lose weight through diet and exercise means that it is quite slow, and people are becoming attuned to the fact that there is a drug out there which can slim you down faster."

Mr Fry said people felt under increasing pressure to lose weight faster because they felt being overweight might affect their employment opportunities.