Who To Tell That You're On A GLP-1 — And What To Say

Nobody asks what blood pressure medication you take. They will absolutely ask how you lost the weight.

The moralising around obesity treatment is doing something unpleasant here: it has turned a prescription into a confession. You are entitled to decline that framing entirely — but it goes much better if you have decided in advance what you are going to say.

Start from the actual principle

Your prescriptions are private medical information and you are under no obligation to disclose them to anyone other than clinicians involved in your care.

That includes parents, siblings, friends, colleagues and your manager. If you want to tell people, tell them; the point is that it should be a choice you make rather than a debt you owe to whoever asked.

Who genuinely needs to know

Every clinician treating you, without exception. This matters most for anyone planning surgery or sedation: delayed gastric emptying raises the risk of aspiration under anaesthetic, and current guidance in most countries requires specific fasting adjustments or holding doses beforehand. Tell your anaesthetist, and tell them early.

Also: your dentist for anything under sedation, your pharmacist because of absorption interactions with other oral medicines, and anyone managing an existing condition — particularly diabetes, where other medications may need adjusting.

Scripts for when you'd rather not go into it

The most effective deflection is warm, brief and closed. Long explanations invite follow-ups.

“I've been working with my doctor on some health stuff — I'd rather not get into the details.” “Thanks! I'm not really discussing it, but I appreciate you noticing.” “Honestly, I'd rather talk about something else — how's your week been?”

For the persistent: “I've said I'd rather not discuss it.” Repeat verbatim rather than escalating. It works because there is nothing to argue with.

If you do want to tell people

Consider who and why. A close friend you want support from is different from a wider circle who will have opinions.

Expect some unsolicited commentary: about “the easy way out”, about side effects they read about, about someone they know who regained. A useful reply is simply that this is a decision you made with your doctor. You are not required to defend a prescription.

At work

You do not need to tell an employer. If side effects are affecting your work, you can request adjustments citing a medical condition and treatment without naming either — occupational health exists partly for this.

Practical adjustments people find useful: scheduling demanding meetings away from the day after an injection, having food and water available at your desk, and a bit of flexibility in the first weeks after each dose increase.

The privacy of the tools you use

This is the part people tend to overlook until a notification appears on a shared screen. Health apps generate visible traces: an icon on your home screen, an entry in an app store history, reminders that pop up during a meeting.

It is one of the more genuinely differentiating aspects of Zenday App, which is built web-first specifically for this reason — nothing installed, no app store record, and the company states health data is not sold. Whatever you use, it is worth checking three things: what notifications appear on a locked screen, whether data is shared with third parties, and what happens to your record if you stop using it.

A note on the shame

Taking medication for a chronic condition is not a moral failing, and obesity medicine now treats obesity as one. Nobody describes insulin as cheating.

You may still not want to discuss it, and that is a perfectly good reason on its own. Privacy does not require a justification.