Lunchtime Discussion Group - Processed Foods and Weight Loss Drugs

Dine and Discuss in a friendly environment!

Join our popular Lunchtime Discussion Group for an afternoon of friendly conversation whilst dining at a local restaurant.

This month we'll be discussing Processed Foods and Weight Loss Drugs. We'll be considering questions such as: How are weight loss drugs set to change the way we think about weight loss? Who should be taking these drugs? What are the benefits and the risks? How does our reliance on processed foods have serious negative consequences on physical and mental health?

In his book Magic Pill: The Extraordinary Benefits and Disturbing Risks of the New Weight-Loss Drugs, Johann Hari offers a revelatory look at the drugs upending weight loss as we knew it — from his personal experience on Ozempic to what these drugs mean for our society’s deeply dysfunctional relationship with food, weight, and our bodies.

The massive rise in obesity rates around the world in the last half century didn’t happen because something went wrong with human biology. It happened because something went disastrously wrong with our diet and lifestyle. We began to eat food designed to be maximally addictive. We built cities that are impossible to walk or bike around. We became much more stressed, making us seek out more comfort snacks. From this perspective, the new weight loss drugs arrive at a moment of madness. We built a food system that poisons us, then decided en masse to inject ourselves with a different potential poison that puts us off all food.

There will be a briefing paper circulated before this meeting.

About Discussion Group

Our discussions can cover any socially relevant issue. Participants decide on the topics for discussion based on their interests. From evolution to anthropology, from economics to psychology, from the environment to . . . anything that catches your interest.

If you want to contribute, we’d ask you to prepare something that has fired up your imagination. Contributions might be sharing ideas from a book or article you’ve read, or simply an idea that you’ve researched. Individuals will submit a written summary of their idea before the meal.

On the day, the group will question, discuss and assess the implications. If you want to come along to listen and comment, that’s fine too. The aim is to engage a group of like-minded people who enjoy understanding and challenging each other’s ideas.