In the UK, it’s estimated that 1.5 million people are on weight loss jabs.
For many, as the Guardian’s science editor, Ian Sample, explains, they have proved revolutionary – helping users lose weight in a way few could have imagined just a couple of years ago.
But there is a catch: the vast majority of prescriptions are from private providers. The cost is going up dramatically, and the evidence suggests that most who come off the jabs put weight back on rapidly.
It leaves people such as the career coach Aimee Young facing a dilemma. As she explained in a recent Instagram video, she was being forced to give up the jabs she had been taking since the start of the year. She tells Helen Pidd about the transformative effect they had on her life … and her worries about what will happen now.
Photograph: Iuliia Nemchinova/Alamy