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Networth and Chill with Your Rich BFF
How GLP-1s Are Reshaping the Economy and Who's Really Paying for It
00:28:22
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Vivian Tu
Society is evidence to be unhappy with you if you aren't some arbitrary ideal weight. Science has provided an injection for those who want and can afford it. An injection that can work better than diet and exercise alone. But guess what? Society still isn't going to be satisfied. You can legally be fired for being seen as overweight in almost every state. Enter GLP1s the Ozempic Era Sounds pretty great, right? What's the problem? Sure, you can have your dream body, but you have to be willing to pay the dream premium.
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Commercial Voice
Foreign.
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Vivian Tu
What's up everyone? I'm your host Vivian Tu, AKA Urich, BFF and your favorite Wall street girly. Beauty standards are constantly changing. Remember how cool it was to wear thick eyeliner and low rise jeans in the early 2000s? Or the bell bottom craze of the 70s? But there's one aspect of beauty that does not only remain constant, it can have a huge impact on your finances. Weight it's sad to say, but in America, thinness is not just an aesthetic, it's often a financial asset. Research shows that weight bias in the workforce is incredibly and unfortunately real, especially for women. A study by economist David Lempert found that a 10% increase in a woman's body mass was associated with a 6% decrease in her income. Weight discrimination also internalizes into self worth. Women in larger bodies are less likely to get hired and are shown to negotiate less effectively. This reality isn't new, and it's been commodified for decades. Think Weight Watchers, the Biggest Loser, and even the Atkins Diet. The target audience for weight loss continues to grow. 30% of American adults were categorized as obese in the year 2000. Today that number sits at about 42%. Naturally, the weight loss industry is growing and evolving to match this rising number. Drugs now exist to allow you to chemically purchase proximity to this contrived beauty standard of thinness. But they tend to cost 350 to $1,000 a month and and insurance coverage is a lottery. This episode asks the question nobody in personal finance is asking if thinness literally makes you richer, is a GLP1 a financial investment? Or is this just another health fad sweeping the country?
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Vivian Tu
Let me hit you with some stats to show you just how important this conversation really is. A Harvard study found that while biases towards sexual orientation and race decreased from 2007 to 2016, weight bias increased by 40% in that same time period. An analysis by the economist concluded that US workers lose out on more than $70 billion a year due to weight discrimination. As with many other issues, this bias has an outsized effect on women, especially as they age. According to the National Institutes of Health, the financial net worth of moderately to severe obese women ages 51 to 61 was 40% lower than their quote unquote normal weight peers. That number jumps to 60% for women 57 to 67. Not only that, but as women become more successful, their weight has more of an impact on their earning potential. Female executives who are overweight may have up to a 16% lower wage. The cherry on top is that weight is not a protected category under the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. You can legally be fired for being seen as overweight in almost every state though shout out to Michigan, Colorado and Washington for being decent. Where does this come from? There's an unfortunate stigma that obesity is caused by lifestyle choices, lack of willpower, laziness. Somehow we've learned not to blame people for mental illness, but our progress is utterly lacking when it comes to weight. The demographics most likely to be obese in the US are adults aged 40 to 59, aka those at the height of their careers, many of whom are juggling caring for children and aging parents. So they probably just don't have as much time to focus on their own physical health. Another demographic is lower income individuals who likely don't have as much money to spend on their physical health, and black and Hispanic adults who the US healthcare system is notorious for leaving behind. So no, we are not here to blame or stigmatize anyone for the shape of their body. Then we add on another hurdle. Finspiration is everywhere. Open your Instagram and you are hit with size 0 bodies. Online shopping plus size models make up less than 3% of fashion E commerce representation with many companies using sized 4 to 6 models sporting padding to showcase bigger sizes. Movies and TV are definitely guilty too. A generation ago the middle aged high school science teacher in your favorite sitcom was Rockin a dad bod. Now they've got a six pack. The pressure is everywhere. The protection is nowhere and pretty privilege has numerical evidence. Enter GLP1s the Ozempic Era it is impossible to overstate the effect GLP1s have had on our society and our economy. Here's an example that'll blow your mind if you in 2025, the combined revenue of OpenAI and Anthropic was 29 billion. The combined revenue of Ozempic and Mounjaro that year was a whopping 71 billion. Weight loss drugs are reeling it in very much at the consumer's expense, and none of this is to say that the product isn't justified. Today's common drugs taken for weight loss Ozempic, Mounjaro, Wegovy, Zepbound are shown to lessen the likelihood of strokes, heart attacks and even Alzheimer's, while also helping those with diabetes and of course, those who want to lose we Sounds pretty great, right? What's the problem? Add on to that the immense pressure from social media, the workplace, and often friends and family to be some ideal weight and GLP1s are extremely appealing. So appealing that a reported 1 in 8American adults is currently taking one. But the cost can be astronomical as health insurance can feel like a total lottery for coverage. Far fewer than half of employer health care plans offer GLP1 coverage, and that amount drops drastically for state employee plans, Medicaid, and, God forbid, Medicare. If you're not one of the lucky few, you could be looking at a monthly price tag upwards of $2,000. Sure, you can have your dream body, but you have to be willing to pay the dream premium. And these days plenty of a listers are on weight loss drugs, and quite a few of them are willing not just to admit it, but have an open conversation about it. Rebel Wilson lost 80 pounds in 2020 through diet, exercise and Ozempic. Elon Musk also dropped some poundage, combining intermittent fasting, weightlifting and Wegovy before switching to Manjaro. We've all seen Serena Williams and Roe ads. Jonathan Van ness started a GLP1 after a health scare. Whoopi Goldberg, Meghan Trainor, Charles Barkley. The list is long. While there have definitely been a few critics of the drugs, Amy Schumer and Bunny Xo both quit taking them due to severe side effects. The overwhelming messaging is what a positive impact weight loss drugs have had on these public figures lives and therefore on yours as well. The conversations about the costs are minimal because these are all millionaires or approaching trillionaire in Musk's case, and the expense is a non issue for them, but less so for you. Probably one of the most in depth and powerful celebrity weight loss conversations was when Oprah spoke very candidly to People magazine about her journey. She said that she started on GLP1s and then tried to beat the medication, but after a year off of the shots, she'd gained 20 pounds back. Oprah now equates her GLP1 usage to her blood pressure medication, saying it's going to be a lifelong thing and is so supportive of the impact of the drugs that she pays out of her own pocket for friends who can't afford them. Seems nice, but we gotta remember she's also a billionaire. While these celebrity and influencer perspectives can have you ready to shell out your thousands, and maybe that's the right choice for you, but it's important to remember that the same category of people is encouraging all kinds of body modifications and asking are you ever good enough? If they can make you think you're not, you'll be willing to pay for it There's a strong presence on the Internet these days that has taken old fashioned glow ups to a new, expensive and potentially dangerous level. The manosphere is pushing looks maxing, intense optimization of physical appearance. Soft maxing AKA softer looks maxing may result in a small increase in spending. Maybe it's a new skincare routine. A gym membership and wardrobe can certainly cost you, but hard maxing? We're talking hair transplants, cosmetic surgery, steroid use, weight loss. None of those things are cheap and they all start adding up very quickly. It's best to be discerning about what you actually need versus what the influencers are getting paid to tell you to buy. And there's yet another trend that's addressing your looks and eating at your wallet. Peptide Stacks the peptide market is highly unregulated in terms of safety and quality control, and the wrong stack or usage can come with some pretty gnarly adverse reactions. Take Melanitan 2 or MT2 for short. It's a peptide used for skin tanning and it's gaining dangerous popularity. Didn't we learn enough about how not to darken our skin from tanning beds? Guess not. A young Australian man was injecting MT2 and very soon found dozens of moles popping up on his back, scaring his dermatologist and making him high risk for skin cancer for the rest of his life. He is going to be a high risk candidate into his old age when he likely won't care what color his skin is as much and his story is not unique. But the kicker for us because we're always bringing it back to financial cost. A typical stack will run you anywhere from 300 to over $1,000 a month, just like Ozempic and other weight loss drugs. Speaking of maxing Retatrutide or Retta, the injectable peptide that targets three hormone receptors instead of Ozempics one to strive for even greater weight loss has no official pharmacy pricing yet, but is projected at over $1,000 a month. Given that there's no regulation or FDA approval for stacking, there's no hope of insurance coverage. So if you go this route, you will be paying those numbers entirely out of pocket. Society is evidenced to be unhappy with you if you aren't some arbitrary ideal weight Science has provided an injection for those who want and can afford it. An injection that can work better than diet and exercise alone. But guess what? Society still isn't going to be satisfied. A brand new study at Rice University determined that people will judge you for how you lose weight, sometimes more harshly than if you hadn't lost weight at all. There's an idea that people who use GLP1s to knock off the pounds instead of or in addition to diet and exercise are taking the easy way out. But wait, there's more. Participants of the study rated those who stopped taking their GLP1 medication and regained the weight even worse than those who stayed on it. Bit of a Damned if you do, damned if you don't, don't you think? Here's another one. As we discussed, people, especially women who are not obese, are more likely to get hired and negotiate a better rate of pay. But what about the other side of that coin? Employers are learning that their hiring bias may be biting them in the butt. One survey of people on GLP1s found that many were experiencing side effects that were impacting their productivity at work. 34% of participants had headaches, 28% nausea, 23% dizziness. You get the picture. Sounds like me in the back of a Tesla. These kinds of symptoms are not going to make you a model employee. And if you wouldn't have been experiencing these issues without the GLP1, maybe the employer wouldn't be losing money on your decreased productivity. That may or may not have resulted if not for their hiring bias. Not to mention especially in the high intensity hedge fund and Wall street space. I've even heard a rumor that certain employers are preventing employees from getting on GLP1s because the same part of the brain that drives the hunger to succeed and work harder and tolerate those long hours is the same part of the brain that is actually impacted by GLP1s and is also in control of the actual eating and drinking and habit forming behavior that GLP1s oftentimes target. So GLP1s are literally making these high powered, high intensity employees less motivated to do their jobs. And despite the cost and how recently they've come to the market, GLP1s really have taken the weight loss market by storm. So much so that we're seeing fascinating consumer demand shifts and macroeconomic impact Just a few years in Groceries, of course have seen quite a change. A Cornell study from 2024 found that an average American household's grocery bill dropped 5.3% within six months of someone starting a GLP1. That number jumps to over 8% for higher income households, although across the board that percentage number will go down over time. Foods typically bought as impulse cravings and impulse purchases, savory snacks, chips, sweets, baked goods, cookies were the categories that saw the greatest decrease by about 10%. Food companies are noticing the drop in Supply and Demand Economics 101. They are adjusting their offerings in an attempt to keep their consumers PepsiCo CEO spoke of fiber and hydration solutions and keeping the brand in the hands of loyal customers by offering smaller portion options while other companies are adding tags or badges to foods that are GLP1 friendly. That in conjunction with adjusting portion sizes or even creating new lines entirely to appeal to this less hungry audience is is entirely an economic decision from these companies. Full service restaurants are also seeing effects of GLP1s. 45% of respondents from an EY Parthenon survey said they're eating out less and less likely to order a drink when they do, meaning alcohol, which is already seeing less action these days with Gen Z being light drinkers is taking another hit. These restaurants are adjusting too with Chipotle offering grab and grow protein cups starting in December and and Olive Garden creating a cheaper lighter portions menu last year. And it's not just food. A Jeffrey study that appeared in the New York Times at the beginning of the year found that the four major airline carriers in the US could together save $580 million per year on fuel costs as a direct result of carrying lighter passengers. The estimated 2% reduction in weight on airplanes could lead to a 4% increase in earnings per share from for investors. Clothing companies are also facing new challenges as buying in specialized sizing categories has shifted and size volatility is leading to inventory issues and more returns. And this is just the beginning. The FDA approved WeGovy only five years ago and demand has been growing immensely since then. Who knows where we'll be in another five years, But I can't say I'm mad about jets burning less fuel and fast food companies shifting healthier.
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Vivian Tu
now onto our Q&A portion. First question if airplanes need less gas to fly because people are getting lighter, are savings on gas for my car worth factoring in as an offset of GLP1 prices? Yes and no. It is very true that if your car is carrying less weight that you will actually save money on gas. You will not burn through your gas as quickly. That said, when I say carrying weight, we are talking about meaningful, meaningful weight. So if you have a rack on the top of your car for that kayak for weekends, maybe take the rack off. If you're not actually going kayaking, if you've got a bunch of your son's football and hockey equipment in the trunk, maybe take that out and don't just carry it place to place to place. That said, if you are looking to take a GLP1 to lose 20 pounds, yes, in theory your gas prices would be like less over time. But I don't think that you would save enough on the gas to actually pay for a GLP1, which could be hundreds if not thousands of dollars every single month. But yes, being lighter will naturally make your fuel stretch for longer, meaning you will spend less money on gas over time. Next question. Do you have any advice for handling co workers who notice that I started on a weight loss drug? Yeah, that's none of their damn business. What you decide to do for your health, what you decide to do for your body, what you decide to do even for just your personal esthetic and your choices are none of their business. I think it's very strange in fact that we comment on people's bodies at all unless it's specifically for a body focused activation. So for example, if someone is, you know, really getting their abs ripped and oiling up and doing the contouring so that they can be on the COVID of Men's Health, I think it's fine to be like hey, congrats on your magazine cover. You look amazing. That is really nice to say to someone who probably worked very hard for that cover, as you know, in the entertainment industry, whatever. For a coworker whose job is not to look a certain way, they are not a model, they are not a full time bodybuilder, they are not any of those things. It is strange that people would be like, wow, you've lost a lot of weight. You look great. We are not commenting on people's bodies. We don't comment when they get bigger, we don't comment when they get smaller. Why don't we say something else? Hey, I absolutely love that perfume you're wearing. It's. It smells delicious. What brand is it? Or your hair looks really nice. That is it. Or hey, you did a really good job on that project, which is frankly what we should all be discussing in the workplace. Anyway, I learned a rule from my mom growing up and I think a lot of parents try to teach this rule to their kids. But if it's not something that is able to be fixed in, you know, five minutes, we do not make a comment about it. So, hey, you got a big piece of spinach in your teeth. Definitely tell your friend that. Definitely tell your coworker that because they can run to the bathroom, they can get a piece of floss. They can fix that. That is something that they can fix about their appearance. Hey, you have really bad acne. Is not an appropriate thing to say to someone. It is not like, oh, wow, your skin's breaking out today. Like, they can't fix that. They cannot get the acne to go away instantaneously. I just think we should not be making comments about things people cannot fix or that has not happened in the last five minutes. That's all. Ooh, this is a great question. Do you see GLP1s exacerbating the wage gaps for income classes? I do think that it is possible the folks who are able to afford a GLP one are then likely going to be able to one maintain healthier lifestyles, spend less on medical care down the road. They are going to be the benefit of, you know, weight bias. They could make more at work. But something else is also very interesting and this is like a cultural commentary. People always want what they can't have. If we rewind the tape, the early 2000s, it was like very chic to be like rail thin. And because everyone was striving for this rail thinness, all of a sudden, the 2000s and even into the, you know, the 2000s, we saw the rise of the very full, curvaceous, like Kim K Body. Like she became the beauty standard. People wanted to have the big butt. They wanted to have, you know, the very, very hourglass figure. Very different from the early 2000s Kate Moss look. And that was because having that figure was very challenging. Other people couldn't have that figure. Either you had to get the BBL or you had to be in the gym five days a week doing the, the booty builder machine. It's always been a testament to who has the money or who has the time to actually get the figure, the different figure. And now that weight loss and this thinness era has kind of reared its head again. The GLP1s have made it rather easy for people to be thin. And so all of a sudden, guess what's back now big boobs. People are now really, really into the boobs look. Again. Like this is kind of, we're literally cyclical. We're going back to the early 2000s and frankly prior to the 2000s of the, the big Pamela Anderson, like just bombshell, like big boob look. And again, people are getting boob jobs. And so I think that it's really frustrating that we are always chasing the new beauty standard because your body shouldn't be a trend. It is not your job to change your body based on what is currently being photographed in Vogue. I think we're allowed to just love ourselves, unfortunately, regardless of how we look. And maybe that's such a bold and brave statement to be making on the Internet. But I am someone who is always going to be a certain size because my bones are just not structured in a way that I can be a double zero. I am always likely going to be flat chested. That's fine. I have to be able to live with that. And I think when I was younger, probably in my early 20s, when I was much more insecure about my station in life than I am now, I wanted to change myself for all of the reasons that everybody wants to change themselves. They want to be liked, they want to be seen as powerful, they want to see be seen as successful, they want to rise to the top. I'm lucky now I'm 32 that I don't feel that same type of pressure. Maybe it's because I have a loving husband who thinks, you know, the sun shines out of my butt. Maybe it's because I have built an incredible career for myself looking the way I look and I don't feel the need to change that. But I do Think that, like, it is a little scary that we are constantly chasing the next thing and the people who can actually afford to do that chasing are very much so, always at the top of the financial food chain. Next question. Where is all the money that these drugs are making going? What a great question 1. I would say let's be completely transparent. They are lining the pockets of the executives of some of these pharmaceutical companies. Now I will say another, like, decent portion of dollars at these pharmaceutical companies is going into more R and D research and development for other drugs. As I'm sure you can guess, with the incredibly quick adoption of like, things like Ozempic and Wegovy and Zeppbound and Manjaro, every single pharmaceutical company is like, how do we make our own of this? How do we make sure that we can keep amplifying drugs that are going to sell like hotcakes? So yeah, it's making a lot of people at the very tops of those pharmaceutical companies very rich. It's being used to probably develop even more GLP1 style drugs, different formats of those drugs. I think I saw Something that said GLP1s, you know, might be offered in a pill format which would make it so much more accessible versus having to have it be an injectable medication. As someone who is on an injectable medication for my asthma and my eczema, they are so annoying and so expensive because you have to keep them refrigerated, you have to store them properly, they have to be shipped to you on like ice. And you know, it's a lot more stressful than taking a pill once a day because so many women in particular, I know, do take a pill once a day and it's birth control. And so I think that, you know, they are trying to find innovative ways to make these drugs even more appealing so that more people will buy them. And that becomes a hamster wheel of these pharma companies making more and more money. Ooh, another great question. Do you think health insurance companies will become more likely to pay for GLP1s if they're shown to improve long term health? I do. Because it is typically always cheaper to do preventative medicine than to do retroactive medicine. And so if you are able to take a drug like a GLP1 and it lowers your risk for Alzheimer's, it lowers your risk for heart disease, it lowers your risk for all of these other complications that could end up being very, very expensive or get you on even more expensive drugs. So like if you need a humalog like insulin is super expensive. If you need to be put into like inpatient care because you have a medical emergency, that's very expensive. If your insurance company can do the math, they actually hire people called actuaries to kind of like pro con out like what this will cost them today, what it'll be worth in the future. If insurance companies figure out an equation and find that paying for these drugs now for you will help make it cheaper for them down the line, I'm almost certain more and more health insurance will start covering them. Next question. I'm on a GLP1 and realizing that while I do save on food, replacing my closet is expensive. Any advice on finding some savings in the categories the drug makes more expensive? If you are able to go to your neighborhood tailor more often than not, it'll cost you less to get your tailor your clothes tailored in versus going and buying a full new dress.
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Commercial Voice
Right?
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Vivian Tu
Like the tailor does not need to source the fabric or make the dress in the first place. What they can do is they can take in the sides and they can maybe take in the back. Having something like that tailored would be probably closer to 15 to $30 versus you know, spending $100 on a new dress entirely. So I would say good tailoring is really important. And then also this is so silly, but I don't know if you guys have seen the reference of like how hermit crabs work. When one hermit crab finds a big shell and it doesn't fit them, they will babysit that like new shell and wait until someone who's slightly bigger than them takes that shell and then they will take their shell and basically it's like a pass down of the like the shells. So it's not necessarily a new shell you're getting, but it's new to you. There are tons of opportunities on like nextdoor Facebook marketplace for you to connect with other people who might be going through something similar to you, but they might be going from the size that you are now at even smaller. So it might be a great opportunity so that you are able to get something for free or at a low cost because they're not going to be able to fit into those clothes anyway. There are no one size fits. All right answers when it comes to balancing your physical, mental and financial health. But knowing is half the battle. So hopefully this gave you some financial insights to weigh in on your decision and can put you on a path to making the right choice for you. And remember, everybody, no matter the size matters, we're people, not mannequins. Let me know what you think in the comments. And if you've enjoyed this episode or you learned something, please consider rating wherever you're listening. It helps support the show in an easy and free way. Love you guys. I'll see you next week. Bye. Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of Net Worth and Chill, part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. If you like the episode, make sure to leave a rating and review and subscribe so you never miss an episode. Got a burning financial question that you want covered in a future episode? Write to us via podcastourrichbff.com follow Net Worth and Chillpod on Instagram to stay up to date on all podcast related news and you can follow me at yourrichbff for even more financial know how to. See you next week.
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