Why weight loss cannot be an aesthetic goal

How has the launch of GLP-1 medication disrupted weight loss/obesity care models globally? For a long time, obesity care was essentially a willpower conversation dressed in clinical language. Eat less, move more, try harder. The results were predictably poor, and the system had quietly accepted that. When semaglutide trial data started showing sustained weight loss of 15 to 20 per cent, physicians who had never seriously engaged with obesity as a treatable disease started paying attention. The disruption was not just pharmacological. It was conceptual. Obesity moved from a lifestyle category into a disease category with a credible medical intervention behind it. Cardiologists, endocrinologists, and primary care physicians started getting involved in ways they previously had not. Science-backed, clinician-led weight loss programmes went from niche to necessary almost overnight. That shift in how the condition is understood clinically is probably more significant than the drug itself. Do you see this disruption playing out in India as well? Yes, and it is moving faster than most people in the industry anticipated. Semaglutide entered Indian clinical practice in 2024 and prescriptions climbed sharply through 2025. The Indian Medical Association’s data from last year showed obesity pharmacotherapy prescriptions more than doubling year on year among physicians. That is not a slow build. That is a market responding quickly to something that works. What makes India’s version of this story complicated is the sequencing. The medication arrived before the clinical infrastructure designed to manage it responsibly was in place. Patients are getting prescriptions from general practitioners without nutritional monitoring, without muscle mass tracking, without any psychological support for the behavioural dimensions of long-term weight management. The drug outpaced the care model. That gap created real risk for patients, and it is exactly why Voy built its programme around medically supervised care from the start. Getting the clinical framework right is not optional when you are operating in this space. Are such models scalable beyond the urban metros to tier 2/3 and rural settings, given India’s socio-economic realities and low insurance coverage? The honest answer is that physical-first models are not scalable beyond the top metros. Specialist density, logistics, and cost structures all work against it once you move past the major cities. That is just the reality of how healthcare infrastructure is distributed in India right now. Digital delivery improves that equation but does not solve it completely. The National Health Authority reported over 120 million telemedicine consultations annually by 2025, and tier two and tier three cities are driving the fastest growth in that number. The infrastructure for remote, doctor-led weight loss care exists and is expanding fast. The harder problem is affordability. Monthly GLP-1 medication costs are out of reach for most households outside urban centres without some form of subsidy or insurance support. Until reimbursement frameworks develop, meaningful access in those geographies will depend on tiered pricing, employer health programmes, and eventually a more deliberate push from government NCD frameworks that treat obesity as the upstream driver it actually is. The hype around GLP-1s has framed obesity treatment plans as cosmetic rather than a clinical process, leading to the misuse of such medications. The regulator CDSCO has also cautioned against misleading advertisements and videos. What is Voy India’s perspective on this? CDSCO is right to be concerned and the problem is bigger than most people in the industry are publicly acknowledging. What has happened on social media is that GLP-1 medications have been pulled out of their clinical context entirely and repositioned as a fast track to a smaller body. The messaging often has nothing to do with metabolic health, disease management, or clinical outcomes. It is weight loss as an aesthetic goal, with a prescription attached. That framing causes real harm. People are sourcing these medications without proper screening. They are using them without the nutritional support that prevents muscle loss. They are stopping them without any guidance on what happens to body composition and weight after discontinuation. These are not edge cases. They are common patterns that surface when a serious clinical intervention gets treated like a consumer product. Our position is that GLP-1 therapy belongs inside a properly managed medical programme, full stop. Selling access to the medication without the clinical infrastructure around it is not obesity care. It is something closer to the opposite. Beyond obesity, prevention and management of metabolic health disorders require evidence-driven, holistic care pathways. How does Voy differentiate itself from other existing models and players in the space? Most platforms in this space are good at one thing. Some handle the prescription well. Some have strong dietary content. Some offer coaching. Very few hold all of it together in an active clinical relationship that runs for the length of time metabolic health management actually requires. That sustained integration is where we focus. A patient working with us is not receiving a medication and a meal plan that run in parallel without talking to each other. They are in a science-backed weight loss programme where physician oversight, dietitian management, and behavioural health inputs are coordinated around their specific picture and adjusted as that picture changes. We monitor what GLP-1 therapy does to muscle mass over time. We track metabolic markers, not just weight. We think about what month twelve looks like, not just what month one looks like. The difference between a weight loss product and a metabolic health programme is that one ends when the number on the scale changes. The other ends when the patient’s health is genuinely, measurably better in ways that hold. viveka.r@expressindia.com viveka.roy3@gmail.com The post Why weight loss cannot be an aesthetic goal appeared first on Express Pharma.