In episode 3 of Exposing Obesity Incorporated, we're dissecting Novo Nordisk’s strategy to diseasify “obesity” and turn it into a lucrative, lifelong market. If you're hearing that GLP-1s for weight loss is a matter of science catching up to medical need, this episode exposes something darker: that science has been handsomely paid to service Novo's marketing needs. We travel from Australia, to the UK, and the USA, hot on the trail of Novo's millions. Across the globe a pattern emerged: Novo money poured in, and the marketing messages poured out. From person-first language to It’s Bigger Than Me campaigns, we reveal how Novo repurposed fat liberation to make a profit-hungry weight loss company look like the good guys. If you care about medical misinformation, conflicts of interest, weight stigma, public health, or how billion-dollar industries manufacture consensus, this episode is essential listening.

Just over a decade ago, Danish pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk announced their intention to build the “Obesity” market “from scratch.” In episode 2 of Exposing Obesity Incorporated, we explore how a pharmaceutical giant transformed one third of human adults into a disease category. We reveal their 3-pronged marketing plan, uncovering the tactics detailed during a remarkably candid Powerpoint presentation which openly described their plan to create “legitimacy and urgency” for the weight loss market. We break down Novo’s intention to manipulate scientific and medical communities, influence guidelines, and exploit social justice concepts such as weight stigma in order to push their weight-loss drugs into every corner of healthcare, regardless of the real science. 

In the “Age of Ozempic,” the relentless drive to medicalize and pathologize higher weight people is producing obscene profiteering at the expense of scientific objectivity. If you’re fed up with the industry’s smoke and mirrors, this episode is essential listening. Perfect for anyone with a body, as well as healthcare professionals, activists, or anyone suspecting they’re being sold a narrative instead of healthcare, don’t miss this episode!

How did Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk transform itself from selling insulin to betting the entire company on GLP-1 weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy?

In this inaugural episode, weight loss industry investigators Louise Adams and Ragen Chastain unpack the chequered history of the pharmaceutical weight-loss industry. Louise revisits the notorious fen-phen scandal, revealing how commercial interests, paid-off obesity researchers, and regulatory failures allowed a dangerous weight-loss drug to reach millions of Americans before whistleblowers brought its devastating consequences to light.

In the aftermath of fen-phen, the pharmaceutical weight-loss industry was left in ruins. Nothing short of a marketing miracle could revive it. Ragen explores how Danish pharma company Novo Nordisk drew from 3 different playbooks - including lessons from the ob*sity industry, Purdue Pharma’s aggressive commercial playbook that had transformed pain into a lucrative cash cow, and the company's own controversial history of insulin pricing -to "take a bet" on ob*sity: the Holy Grail of the pharmaceutical industry.

Exposing Obesity, Incorporated is an investigative podcast examining how marketing, money, political influence, and corporate power reshaped ob*sity into one of the world's most lucrative pharmaceutical markets. Each episode follows the evidence behind the rise of the modern weight-loss industry, and asks who really benefits.

Welcome to the podcast website. We're Louise Adams and Ragen Chastain, two speakers, writers, and researchers who have been exploring and exposing the sordid underbelly of the weight loss industry for almost a half century combined.

The weight loss industry has spent decades infiltrating and manipulating the healthcare system and public health using their construct of "obesity" and now in the so-called Age of Ozempic they are taking their tactics to unimaginable new heights (or, really, unimaginable new lows.)