In the western world, richer people tend to be thinner – especially women. But does wealth make people thin, or does being thin make them wealthy? And could the rise of weight-loss drugs such as Mounjaro and Wegovy give people – especially women – greater control over their economic outcomes? Soumaya speaks to Harvard professor Rebecca Diamond, the author of a new working paper that finds female users of GLP-1 drugs are more likely to find jobs and romantic partners. Soumaya also speaks to FT consumer editor (and GLP-1 user) Claer Barrett to discuss the drugs’ effects on consumer habits – and the economy at large. Subscribe to Soumaya&#x27;s show on Apple, Spotify, Pocket Casts or wherever you listen. Further reading: The economics of women’s weight Does the weight-loss revolution show up in the data? The challenges of a weight-loss economy Presented by Soumaya Keynes. Produced by Mischa Frankl-Duval. Original music and sound design by Breen Turner. Andrew Georgiades is the broadcast engineer. Manuela Saragosa is the executive producer. Flo Phillips if the FT&#x27;s head of audio. Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The economics of weight loss, with Rebecca Diamond and Claer Barrett

The Economics Show 

Most people know that in the Western world, richer people tend to be thinner. What they don't always know is that the difference is driven largely by women. Crunching the numbers, I calculated that obesity rates among the poorest third of American women were 14 percentage points higher than for the richest third. For men, the gap was under a percentage point. This raises some fascinating questions. Does a lower income make you heavier?

Does being heavy make you poorer? And why might the answers be different for women? Economists have been struggling to find concrete answers for decades. But now, as we find ourselves in the middle of a weight loss revolution, they are making some headway. I'm of course talking about GLP-1 drugs like Manjaro and Wegovy. Just this week, the first pill version became available in the UK.

With uptake of these drugs increasing, and they're overwhelmingly used by women, what can we learn about the economics of women's weight? This is The Economics Show with Soumaya Keynes. This week, I spoke to Rebecca Diamond, Professor of Economics at Harvard University and author of a new study on the effects of GLP-1 drugs.

But before we hear from her, I'm joined by my fantastic colleague, Claire Barrett, the FT's Consumer Editor. Claire, hello. Well, thanks for having me on the show. OK, so Claire, you have written about GLP-1 drugs for the FT. Do you want to talk about how that came about? Yes, because I'm on them and I've lost a lot of weight taking them.

I was clinically obese. As someone who writes about personal finance, retirement, longevity, the fact that we're all going to have to work for longer, the motivation for me doing that and wanting to lose weight was very much driven...

The economics of weight loss, with Rebecca Diamond and Claer Barrett

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.

The economics of weight loss, with Rebecca Diamond and Claer Barrett

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast, not the earnings call.

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.