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The number of Americans taking weight loss drugs is skyrocketing. According to a study from the nonprofit FAIR Health, the percentage of adults prescribed “any type of GLP-1 drug” increased from 0.9% in 2019 to 4% by last year.
The growing popularity can put employers in a bind. Demand is expected to keep growing, and the drugs are expensive. As HR Executive has reported, they can cost nearly $1,350 per month, per employee. While most businesses do not yet cover GLP-1s, the pressure is on. In a survey, more than two-thirds of Americans said they’d stay at a job they don’t like if it covered these drugs; 20% said they’d take a new job to get this kind of coverage.
As employers make decisions about this coverage, it’s crucial to avoid doing so in a vacuum. As promising as these medications can be, their long-term success depends largely on something else. A study published by The Lancet validated what seems intuitive: Physical activity is essential for making the results of GLP-1s last.
“The addition of supervised exercise to obesity pharmacotherapy seems to improve healthy weight maintenance after treatment termination compared with treatment termination of obesity pharmacotherapy alone,” the study found.
