Episode 3: GLP-1 medications might quieten food noise, but has the noise around weight-loss jabs become impossible to escape?

A Matter of Fat is a podcast for anyone who has no idea what they think about weight, bodies and the rapidly changing conversation around them.

Hosted by journalist Rose Stokes, who brings 30 years of lived experience with weight and obesity, and Dr Giles Yeo, a University of Cambridge scientist who has spent three decades studying how the brain influences appetite, this podcast brings together lived experience and science without pretending to have all the answers.

In episode three, Rose and Giles explore food noise, the impact of GLP-1 medications on appetite and the relentless advertising making weight loss increasingly difficult to escape.

A NOTE ON THE LAW: In the UK, it is illegal to advertise a prescription-only medicine to the public. That is Regulation 284 of the Human Medicines Regulations 2012. It is legislation enforced by the MHRA, and breaching it is a criminal offence.

The advertising industry’s own CAP Code mirrors this at rule 12.12, which is enforced by the ASA. The two are often discussed as though they are the same thing. They are not. One is law, while the other is an advertising code.

This is why the ads you see everywhere never name a drug. They advertise the service, such as a consultation that may or may not result in a prescription. CAP’s own guidance tells advertisers to promote the consultation itself rather than the product. That is what makes these adverts legal.

The contested ground is advertising that leans so heavily on the service framing that everyone understands exactly what is being sold. The ASA has upheld complaints on that basis, and the MHRA has contacted companies which subsequently amended their advertising. That is not the same as a finding that anyone has broken the law.

Nothing in this episode alleges that any company has committed an offence. What we are describing is a pattern of legal advertising working exactly as the rules permit.

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SOURCES:

CAP Code section 12, including rule 12.12

https://www.asa.org.uk/type/non_broadcast/code_section/12.html

CAP guidance on advertising weight-control prescription-only medicines

https://www.asa.org.uk/advice-online/weight-control-prescription-only-medicines.html

Joint statement from the MHRA, ASA and GPhC, June 2026

https://www.asa.org.uk/news/asa-partners-with-mhra-and-gphc-to-reinforce-rules-on-the-advertising-of-weight-loss-drugs-online.html

ASA warning to weight-loss drug advertisers

https://www.asa.org.uk/news/asa-issues-warning-to-weight-loss-drug-advertisers.html

GPhC enforcement notice on weight-management prescription medicine ads, April 2026

https://www.pharmacyregulation.org/about-us/news-and-updates/updated-enforcement-notice-issued-weight-management-prescription-medicine-ads

MHRA Blue Guide: Advertising and promotion of medicines in the UK

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/blue-guide-advertising-and-promoting-medicines

ASA rulings database

https://www.asa.org.uk/codes-and-rulings/rulings.html

Professor Giles Yeo consults and speaks for Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly and Amgen, and has received research grant funding from Novo Nordisk and Amgen. He is joining Amgen's cardiometabolic scientific advisory board, and also consults for Voy. Industry funds most obesity research and these relationships are typical for senior researchers in the field.

Rose Stokes has taken GLP-1 medication and writes about weight and the pharmaceutical industry as a freelance journalist.

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Rose Stokes: https://www.instagram.com/rosestokes/

Giles Yeo: https://www.instagram.com/gilesyeo/

Email us at amatteroffatpod@gmail.com

Press contact: Rosie Cooper, Coventry University

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