Ozempic-Style Drugs for 8-Year-Olds? Prescriptions to Young Kids Explode 310-Fold

More than 20,000 American children between the ages of 8 and 11 have been prescribed GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, and the pace is quickening.A study published September 4 in the journal Pediatrics by researchers at NYU Langone Health found that the share of children ages 8 to 11 with obesity but without diabetes who were prescribed the drugs climbed from 0.03 percent in 2019 to 9.3 percent by June 2026 — a 310-fold jump in seven and a half years. It was the first national look at the use in young children of GLP-1 drugs, which first became publicly available in 2005.No GLP-1 medication holds Food and Drug Administration approval for obesity in children that young, although doctors can legally prescribe them “off-label” if they consider them medically necessary. Wegovy and Saxenda are cleared starting at age 12, and Zepbound is approved for obesity only in adults. All three were among the drugs the researchers counted, and Wegovy was the most commonly prescribed.The surge is driven by social and emotional concerns as well as medical considerations, according to a children’s obesity specialist.“Children with obesity experience bullying, teasing and weight stigma, and families may hope medication will help their child achieve a more socially acceptable body size,” the director of the Duke Children’s Healthy Lifestyles Program, Dr. Sarah Armstrong, tells The New York Sun.Dr. Armstrong says this troubles her because it runs counter to years of work teaching children they can feel good about their bodies at any size. “Medication should be used to treat a chronic disease, not to make a child’s body conform to a social ideal,” she says.So how young is too young for a medication built for adults?Inside the 20,282 PrescriptionsThe Langone Health researchers drew on Epic Cosmos, a national database of electronic health records covering 47,100 clinics, and followed more than 3.5 million children ages 8 to 11 with obesity and no diabetes from January 2019 to mid-June 2026. Children with diabetes were left out because some GLP-1 drugs are approved at younger ages for that group.In all, 20,282 of the children were prescribed a GLP-1 drug. That works out to 0.6 percent of the group, compared with 0.9 percent of adolescents ages 12 to 17.The children getting the drugs were, for the most part, the sickest. Some 93.7 percent had severe obesity, and about 65 percent had at least one weight-related illness, such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure or sleep apnea. A quarter were prediabetic. Girls were more likely than boys to be prescribed the drugs, and older children more likely than younger ones.One of the study’s authors reads the numbers as a sign of a growing health problem rather than medical overreach.“I think the bigger cause for concern is the underlying need driving the increase in prescribing, which is that 20 percent of U.S. children have obesity and many are manifesting cardiometabolic complications at such a young age,” an associate professor of surgery and medicine at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and the study’s lead investigator, Dr. Babak Orandi, tells the Sun.NYU Langone funded the study and says Dr. Orandi’s advisory role with Boehringer Ingelheim, a drugmaker developing its own experimental obesity drug, is unrelated.Childhood obesity has indeed become more common. The share of American children and teenagers ages 2 to 19 with obesity climbed from 13.9 percent in 1999-2000 to 21.1 percent in 2021-2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Severe obesity nearly doubled, from 3.6 percent to 7.0 percent, in that period.Children in lower-income families are far more likely to be affected. From 2017 to March 2020, the rate was 25.8 percent for children in households at or below 130 percent of the federal poverty level, compared with 21.2 percent in the middle income bracket, with incomes up to 350 percent of the poverty level. In the highest income bracket, above 350 percent, the obesity rate was just 11.5 percent.Prescribing Ahead of the ApprovalsDoctors may legally prescribe a drug outside its approved age range, and pediatric obesity guidelines allow consideration of GLP-1 drugs in children as young as eight. The FDA cleared Wegovy for ages 12 and up in December 2022.Tirzepatide is approved under the brand name Mounjaro for children as young as 10 with type 2 diabetes, yet Zepbound, its obesity version, is not approved for anyone under 18.The research on teenagers is deeper. In a key study completed in 2022 known as the Phase 3 STEP TEENS trial, adolescents who took weekly semaglutide alongside lifestyle changes cut their body mass index by an average of 16.1 percent after 68 weeks, while the placebo group’s BMI rose 0.6 percent.For younger children, a randomized 56-week trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2024 found that liraglutide, the drug in Saxenda, produced a greater reduction in BMI than placebo in children ages 6 to 11.More evidence has begun to arrive. On September 7, Wegovy’s maker, Novo Nordisk, reported topline results from its Phase 3 STEP Young trial of 165 children ages 6 to 11. After 68 weeks, 40.4 percent of those given weekly semaglutide were no longer classified as having obesity, compared with none on placebo, assuming they stuck with the treatment. The company reported no new safety concerns. The results are not yet peer reviewed, and Novo plans to present full data at ObesityWeek, an international conference to be held outside Washington, D.C., in November. Dr. Armstrong says more pediatric studies and treatment options are due soon.Until the full trial data are published and peer reviewed, physicians who favor early treatment and those who urge caution agree on one point: The science has gaping holes.“Thus far, the short-term data are reassuring, but we still lack data on the implications of GLP-1 use on pubertal development,” Dr. Orandi tells the Sun.He notes that “there are risks to not adequately treating pediatric obesity, including the development of orthopedic issues, cardiometabolic complications like diabetes, sleep apnea, steatotic liver disease, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia.”Dr. Armstrong does not dismiss that need, yet she urges restraint.“I would be cautious about prescribing medications to young children when we do not yet have adequate evidence for that particular drug, age group and condition,” she says.Dr. Armstrong also lists growth and final height, puberty, bone and muscle development, and children’s developing relationship with food among the open questions, and cautions that no one knows whether the drugs cause problems in these areas.“If a child starts medication at 8 or 9, we potentially are talking about years or even decades of treatment,” she continues.Who Gets the DrugsThe data also show a divide tied to income. Children with obesity in upper-income communities were 55 percent more likely to be prescribed a GLP-1 drug than other children with obesity. A co-senior author of the Langone Health study and associate professor of surgery and population health at NYU Grossman, Allan Massie, says the data shows the start of a widening gap between families with access to the medications and those without.Mr. Massie says physicians and policymakers have a responsibility to make sure young children who need the drugs can get them, including families without insurance or the means to reach pediatric clinics.Dr. Armstrong says the prescribing gap runs opposite to where the disease is most common.“National data show that obesity prevalence among U.S. children is about 26 percent among children in families at or below 130 percent of the federal poverty level, compared with about 12 percent among children in families above 350 percent of the poverty level,” she explains. “When the children with the greatest burden of a disease are less likely to receive one of its most effective treatments, that is a health disparity.”The study’s lead investigator shares that concern.Dr. Orandi calls the finding “disappointing” and says it “reflects challenges in access to obesity care and the high costs of the medications for those who are uninsured or underinsured.”For families weighing the choice, Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago published a guide September 23 listing Wegovy and Saxenda as the two drugs approved for teens 12 and older and noting that Zepbound is not approved for anyone under 18. For children ages 8 to 11, no drug carries federal approval for obesity, so prescribing depends on medical guidelines and each doctor’s judgment.Dr. Armstrong stresses that insurance coverage is the biggest lever.If the drugs prove safe and effective for younger children, “access should be determined by clinical need, not by whether a child’s family can afford the medication or has the resources to navigate the health care system,” she says.

Ozempic-Style Drugs for 8-Year-Olds? Prescriptions to Young Kids Explode 310-Fold

Ozempic-Style Drugs for 8-Year-Olds? Prescriptions to Young Kids Explode 310-Fold

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