Weight-loss drug prescriptions soar among U.S. children

Weight-loss drugs once used mainly by adults are increasingly being prescribed to young children, according to new research.

But the rapid rise reveals a surprising reality about who is getting them.

The study, led by researchers at New York University, examined prescribing trends for glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs), a class of drugs that includes Wegovy, Saxenda and Zepbound, among U.S. children aged 8 to 11 with obesity but without diabetes.

Using data from more than 3.5 million children in the Epic Cosmos electronic health record network, the researchers tracked prescriptions between January 2019 and June 2026.

What they found was striking.

The prevalence of GLP-1 prescriptions increased from just 0.03 percent of eligible children in 2019 to 9.3 percent in 2026, representing a 310-fold increase over the study period.

Yet even after that dramatic rise, only 0.6 percent of the 3.52 million children included in the study had ever received a prescription for one of the medications.

The findings come amid growing interest in the use of GLP-1 medications for obesity treatment.

While some of these drugs have received U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for adolescents aged 12 and older, no obesity medication is currently FDA-approved for children under 12, although professional guidelines allow clinicians to consider their use in some younger patients.

The study suggests physicians are largely reserving the drugs for children facing the greatest health risks.

Young patients prescribed GLP-1 medications were far more likely to have severe obesity and obesity-related health conditions than those who did not receive the treatments.

Nearly 94 percent of children given a GLP-1 drug had severe obesity, compared with about 52 percent of non-users.

For parents wondering when medical treatment should enter the conversation, lead investigator Dr. Babak J. Orandi, an obesity medicine specialist and associate professor at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, said lifestyle measures remain the starting point.

“Diet, physical activity and behavioral support are the foundation,” Orandi told Newsweek. “GLP-1s should be an add-on, not used in isolation.”

He said clinicians may consider the medications when a child develops obesity-related complications or when lifestyle interventions alone have not produced sufficient improvements.

“For parents, that inadequate response, or any sign of a weight-related health issue, is a reasonable signal to bring it up with a pediatrician,” Orandi said.

Children with obesity-related complications also had much higher prescribing rates.

The highest rates were seen among children with prediabetes, followed by those with hypertension, metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease, hyperlipidemia and obstructive sleep apnea.

Prescribing patterns also differed across demographic groups. Older children were more likely to receive the medications than younger ones, while girls were prescribed GLP-1 drugs at a higher rate than boys.

Researchers also found that children living in areas with lower social vulnerability were more likely to receive prescriptions than those living in more vulnerable communities.

According to the authors, those disparities may signal emerging inequities in access to obesity treatments.

As clinical guidelines increasingly support earlier intervention and additional pediatric indications are explored, the benefits of these medications could disproportionately reach children from more advantaged backgrounds.

The researchers cautioned that the study relied on electronic health record prescriptions, which do not necessarily reflect whether medications were dispensed, taken as prescribed, or used long-term.

They also noted that the database, while extensive, is not a representative sample of all U.S. health systems.

Questions also remain about the consequences of using the medications in children over the long term.

“The preliminary data look reassuring, but longer follow-up is needed to fully clarify the risks and benefits,” Orandi said.

He noted that any unknown risks must be weighed against the well-established harms of untreated childhood obesity, including type 2 diabetes, hypertension, fatty liver disease, sleep apnea, joint problems and a higher risk of premature death.

“It’s worth pointing out that children who are able to get their weight into a healthier range by the time they reach adulthood end up with the same cardiometabolic risks as their peers who never had obesity,” Orandi said. “The reversibility of risk is a strong argument in favor of treatment.”

Reference

Orandi, B., Trends in GLP-1 Receptor Agonist Prescriptions for Children Ages 8-11 with Obesity: 2019–2026, Pediatrics (2026). DOI: 10.1542/peds.2020-000123

Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Kara Dolman and Emma Lee-Sang