Hundreds of Children in England Prescribed Weight-Loss Jabs, Figures Show

Hundreds of children in England are receiving prescriptions for GLP-1 medications, including some younger than 12, an investigation has revealed.

GLP-1 medications were initially developed to help people with type 2 diabetes control their blood sugar, but products such as Wegovy and Mounjaro have since become popular slimming aids. While social media is awash with adults who have lost weight with GLP-1s, the data shows a number of children are also being prescribed them.

Figures obtained from the NHS Business Services Authority through freedom of information requests show that in the financial year 2025-26, 419 prescriptions were issued to children under 18, 10 of them for children under the age of 12.

In the four months from April to July this year alone, 341 prescriptions for GLP-1s were issued to children, 15 of whom were under 12.

The figures relate to prescriptions issued in England and dispensed in a community setting anywhere in the UK. They do not cover private prescriptions, prisons or hospitals, meaning they are likely to be a considerable underestimate. One private clinic for children has previously revealed it has more than 200 patients receiving the jabs, and it is unclear whether the figures reflect medications given primarily for weight loss.

Martin Whyte, a professor of metabolic medicine at the University of Surrey, said the number of prescriptions was still small relative to the scale of childhood obesity, but that those taking the drugs needed long-term change to their lifestyles.

He said children who start the drugs should do so within specialist services, with support for diet, growth and wellbeing and a plan for the long term — including regular monitoring of growth and puberty, nutritional intake, mental health, eating behaviours and side effects. This matters partly because weight tends to return when the drugs are stopped, and partly because data on use over many years in growing young people is still limited.

The rising use of GLP-1s comes as childhood obesity increases. Figures from the National Child Measurement Programme show 10.7% of reception-year children (aged four and five) are obese, rising to 22.8% for children in year six (aged 10 and 11).

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 400 million children and adolescents aged five to 19 were overweight in 2024, including 170 million living with obesity.

As part of early intervention efforts, the NHS began piloting Complications from Excess Weight (CEW) clinics in 2021, aimed at children aged two to 16 with severe obesity. In May, NHS England revealed almost 6,500 children have since been referred to such clinics, including more than 400 younger than four. Hundreds of young people have received weight-loss medications through such services, although only some CEW clinics can access funding to offer GLP-1s, typically dispensed through hospital pharmacies.

Dr Dunia Ismail, a consultant paediatrician who runs a CEW clinic, said experts were now looking at widening the use of GLP-1s in such settings. “We have been sticking to 12 [years], although now we are looking at expanding that to eight-plus once licence-approved,” she said.

Last month, new global guidelines from the WHO stated obesity medications, including GLP-1s, should not be given to children under the age of 10. However, data from a trial involving 165 children aged six to under 12 — run by Novo Nordisk, which produces Wegovy and Victoza — has suggested GLP-1s can help young children with obesity.

Julian Hamilton-Shield, a professor in diabetes and metabolic endocrinology and a clinician at the Bristol CEW clinic, said children who receive semaglutide at CEW clinics had typically been unable to lose weight through standard dietary and nutritional advice and psychological support. “Probably, in the vast majority of cases, they have a secondary comorbidity such as type 2 diabetes, obstructive sleep apnoea, liver disease, intracranial hypertension — you name it, they've got it,” he said. “So it's been used as an adjunct after standard therapies haven't really helped. However, it is used quite frequently and it is a very effective drug.”

Hamilton-Shield stressed the medications were given to children with very high excess weight — “You'd call it morbid obesity if you were classifying it as adults.” He said: “We're a health service that delivers health to the people who require it. We're not one that makes moral judgments about people. Nobody's saying that every child who's a bit heavy should have a GLP-1.” These children, he added, come from very complex backgrounds, lack self-esteem and are not attending school; a drug that helps them lose 25 or 30kg gives them agency for the first time, with a transformative effect of its own.

Ismail also stressed the importance of GLP-1s for children. “We know now that obesity is not a choice, it's a condition,” she said. “We're giving them GLP-1s because there is nothing else you can do at this stage. Otherwise, they will die young, they will have heart disease, they will have diabetes … It's just terrible what could happen to them if we don't.” Experts say the renewed debate about the drivers of childhood obesity should not lead to blaming patients or their families.