I'm someone that has spent many years of my life eating well and exercising regularly, including weightlifting. I'm also someone who has spent the past decade doing neither of those things, with one attempt in the middle to correct my behavior interrupted by a knee injury.

I'm currently on tirzepatide and have also started to resume exercise, and I'm enjoying it like I did when I was younger - I expect I'll be able to go off of it when I get to my goal weight.

But at the same time, there's not any real reason that people would need to go off the drugs, outside of cost. So far we don't see any adverse reactions in the vast majority of people. Some people have reactions from rapid weight loss - gallstones, hair loss, etc. but these are also risks in crash diets, etc.

We accept that people will need lifelong medication (often with worse side effects) for other illnesses that have less risk to all cause mortality, etc., than obesity. Why would we be unwilling to do it for obesity?

The fact of the matter is that despite the risks and downsides of obesity being well known in America, 42% of American adults are obese. No amount of education or knowledge that has gotten us on the whole to eat better or exercise more. Plainly, being on these GLP1 medications is preferable to being obese based on all current knowledge.