Hussain Al-Zubaidi: Drugs alone can’t fight obesity

People shouldn’t rely on fat loss drugs alone to fight the battle against obesity, according to leading GP and TV medic, Dr Hussain Al-Zubaidi.

Al-Zubaidi, a regular guest on Channel 4’s ‘Steph’s Packed Lunch’ and the lifestyle and physical activity lead for the Royal College of General Practitioners, was addressing a Bolton gathering of fitness industry professionals discussing the roll out of GLP-1 drugs.

“The roll out of GLP-1s within primary care is very much the hot topic at the moment,” Dr Al-Zubaidi said.

“It is going to transform how we deliver primary care – and a lot of other things. As we roll out GLP-1 therapies in primary care, we must resist the temptation to settle for the minimal scalable model of lifestyle support. I was emphasising that people deserve better than that.

“Our patients deserve a comprehensive, multi-component approach – nutrition, behavioural and psychological support, sleep and stressmanagement, physical activity, and addiction care all working in harmony.”

Dr Al-Zubaidi was the speaker at a professional development networking event for the health, fitness and wellbeing sector held at the Bolton Arena Community Sports Village. The network, known as LFX, is made of over 40 leisure operators who meet regularly to share and evolve ideas.

The Bolton event was organised in conjunction with GM Active, a collective of 12 leisure and community organisations which manage publicly owned leisure and physical activity assets on behalf 10 local authorities.