Almost two million people in the UK are using weight loss jabs, and the expert who joined ITV’s This Morning on 26 June is calling unsupervised use a potential public health emergency. Dr Federica Amati, a medical scientist and nutritionist, set out the case in the segment where she warned of malnutrition and hair loss. Her broadcast coincides with the publication of a new book on how to take the drugs safely.
The This Morning channel said 95% of those users are getting the jabs outside the NHS, not through it. Amati put the moment in starker terms, describing medicines originally approved for Type-2 diabetes that are now moving well beyond the patients they were designed for.
Amati on the Sofa
Amati, a medical scientist and nutritionist, is the author of The Appetite Reset, billed as the first scientific guide to taking weight loss medications safely. The This Morning segment featured her laying out why the category has moved beyond the patients it was built for. ‘They can be life-changing when used correctly, but misuse could become a public health emergency,’ the show’s host, Josie Gibson, summarised as Amati spoke. Amati herself returned to that phrase again and again through the interview.
The exchange aired on 26 June 2026 on ITV. The book and the broadcast are part of the same argument: that the jabs work only when the rest of the prescription, the diet, the training, and the medical oversight, is in place. Amati treats the jab as one input among several the body needs in order to come through the prescription intact.
The Side Effects No One Mentions
Amati laid out the well-known side effects first: constipation, reflux, nausea and vomiting. She described them as common but not dangerous in the way users sometimes fear. They are, she said, unpleasant to live with, never life-threatening, and that is partly why they have been absorbed into a normal experience of being on the jabs. The pattern, she noted, is that well-described side effects become part of the routine rather than warning signs. Gibson then pushed the conversation onto the effects she said are not spoken about as often.
She told the host she knows friends who have lost weight on the jabs but have also started losing their hair. ‘I wouldn’t say their nutrition was the best, they don’t look healthy,’ Gibson added, listing bad breath as another effect that does not get enough attention. Both ended up describing the same problem: the jabs are working on the weight, but the body underneath is not getting what it needs. Amati treated it as a sign that the prescription is not being paired with the nutritional support the body needs to handle the change.
The phrase Amati used for that gap was lean mass loss, and she tied it directly to muscle as well as micronutrient deficiency. The Appetite Reset book makes the same case at greater length. The book and the broadcast both treat those outcomes as avoidable, given the right food and the right training alongside the jab.
It’s actually a medicine that demands you to improve your lifestyle and your nutrition because otherwise you really run the risk of malnutrition and of having nutrient deficiencies, and of losing muscle mass in the long term.
Dr Federica Amati, a medical scientist and nutritionist, made the case on ITV’s This Morning on 26 June 2026. She returned to the same argument through her new book, The Appetite Reset.
What the Jabs Were Designed to Treat
Mounjaro, Wegovy and Saxenda are the three brand names that dominate the UK weight loss market. Mounjaro is made by Eli Lilly, and Wegovy and Saxenda are made by Novo Nordisk. All three were originally designed to treat Type-2 diabetes, and all three are now approved for weight management in the UK as well.
Amati laid out the indications she said justify the prescriptions. She named body composition, blood glucose control, and a growing list of patients with heart or kidney disease as the patient groups the drugs were built for. Her framing was that obesity and cardiovascular disease are medical conditions, and the jabs were designed and dosed to treat them. The category was designed for medical use, in her reading, with those patient groups as the intended users.
Why Amati Calls This a Public Health Emergency
Two things alarm Amati about the way the category has expanded. The first is how easy the jabs are to get hold of, with private prescriptions and online suppliers handling most of the volume. The second is how many people are ending up on them without the screening their condition, or lack of one, would normally require.
On the segment, Amati returned to the phrase ‘potential public health emergency‘ and what specifically would constitute one. The risk she laid out was malnutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, and the slow loss of muscle mass over months of use. The Appetite Reset book goes deeper, and her comments on the broadcast were a shorter version of the same argument: the jabs work on the appetite, but the food the body takes in still has to support the body’s other systems. Without the screening, the prescription, and the dietary support, the user ends up lighter on the scale but poorer in muscle and micronutrients.
‘The people who take these medicines need to be screened appropriately,’ Amati said. ‘They need to be prescribed to the right people. It’s not for everybody to take these.’
What She Tells Users to Do
Her advice, repeated across the broadcast and the book, comes in three layers. Resistance training, which she described as ‘critical,’ matters because the body loses muscle along with fat on the jabs. She pushed for more fibre and a wider variety of plants, both before starting the jab and during the course. The third layer, a focus on each meal’s nutrient density, was what she treated as the engine of the other two.
On the broadcast, Amati was specific about why resistance training matters. ‘You have to use your muscles,’ she said, framing it as a basic requirement for keeping bones and muscles healthy through the weight loss. She returned to nutrition twice during the segment, once for the period before starting the drug and once for during the course. The pattern is the same in the book, where she treats the jab as one input among several the body needs in order to come through the prescription intact.
Asked for the foods she tells her own patients to prioritise, Amati kept the list short. The point of each one, she said, is feeding the body well. The four she named are staples of a Mediterranean-style plate:
- Avocados
- Eggs
- Oily fish
- Lentils
The same logic applies before starting the jabs, where Amati said the goal is to add fibre and a wider range of plants to the diet. During treatment, the priority shifts to making every meal count, because the appetite suppression is doing the calorie work for the user.
The Manufacturers’ Response
Mounjaro is made by Eli Lilly, and Wegovy and Saxenda are both Novo Nordisk products, the same trio Amati was discussing on the broadcast. NHS England began prescribing tirzepatide, the molecule sold as Mounjaro, for weight management from 23 March 2025, and only through a specialist weight management service rather than as a routine GP prescription. The NHS framework for prescribing weight loss injections requires patients to follow a balanced, reduced calorie diet and take part in regular physical activity, with access to wraparound care that provides dietary and physical activity advice. The three manufacturers were contacted for comment on Amati’s warning and had not responded at the time of publication.
The manufacturers are not named in Amati’s warnings, and her concern is structural rather than a criticism of any single company. The manufacturer’s prescribing information for Mounjaro is one reference point for the rules clinicians work under, including the boxed warning about thyroid C-cell tumours and the list of contraindications that come with the drug. Amati’s argument is that the gap between those rules and the screening that actually happens in real-world use is the public health emergency she is warning about.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the most common side effects of weight loss jabs?
Constipation, reflux, nausea and vomiting. Amati told This Morning these are common but not life-threatening. Less-discussed effects include hair loss, bad breath and, with longer use, loss of muscle mass.
How can users avoid losing hair on Mounjaro or Wegovy?
Amati’s framing is that hair loss on the jabs is usually a sign of nutritional stress rather than the drug acting on hair directly. Her prescription is to pair the jab with a nutrient-dense diet, including the foods she named on the broadcast: avocados, eggs, oily fish and lentils.
Why does Amati call this a public health emergency?
She told This Morning the worry is how easy the jabs are to get hold of and how many users never get screened before starting. The downstream effects she listed were malnutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, and the slow loss of muscle mass over months of use.
Should users do resistance training on weight loss jabs?
Yes. Amati called resistance training ‘critical’ because the body loses muscle along with fat. Her framing was that using the muscles is the basic requirement for keeping bones and muscles healthy through the weight loss.
What should users eat before and during treatment?
Amati told the programme to add more fibre and a wider range of plants before starting, and to focus each meal on nutrient density during treatment. The four foods she named were avocados, eggs, oily fish and lentils.
