Weight-Loss Meds Lead To Nutritional Deficits For Many Kids And Teens, Study Finds

THURSDAY, Sept. 24, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Zepbound are potentially powerful tools in treating childhood obesity — but their use is not risk-free, a new study says.

About 1 in 6 children prescribed a GLP-1 medication wind up diagnosed with a nutritional deficiency, according to results published recently in the journal Childhood Obesity.

Vitamin D deficiency was the most common, diagnosed in more than 12% of children within a year of GLP-1 treatment, researchers said.

“We hope that our study findings bring much needed recognition to the importance of proactive nutritional management when GLP-1s are prescribed to children, as opposed to waiting until a nutritional deficiency is diagnosed,” said senior author Justin Ryder, vice chair of research at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.

“Knowing the risks, we are in a much better position to prevent harm to children treated with GLP-1s during a pivotal period in their lives,” he said in a news release.

Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) drugs mimic the GLP-1 hormone, which helps control insulin and blood sugar levels, decreases appetite and slows digestion of food.

Children need healthy meals to get enough energy, protein and nutrients to support healthy growth and development, and researchers are concerned the reduced appetite caused by GLP-1 drugs might lead to nutritional deficiencies.

“As appropriate pediatric use of GLP-1s becomes more widespread, we need to understand the risks during periods of rapid growth and pubertal development,” Ryder said.

“Nutrients such as vitamin D, iron and calcium are of particular concern during adolescence, when deficiencies may have lasting implications for skeletal health and overall development,” he added.

For this study, researchers analyzed insurance claims data from 2017 to 2022 covering more than 100 million patients to identify more than 2,000 children ages 10 to 17 who’d been prescribed a GLP-1 drug.

The kids were 15 years old on average and nearly 63% had been diagnosed with obesity, researchers said.

Within a year, 17% of the kids had been diagnosed with at least one nutritional deficiency or nutrition-related health problem, the study found.

About 12% of kids had a vitamin D deficiency, which can lead to rickets. Anemia was the next-leading health problem, with nutritional anemia affecting nearly 1.6% of kids and iron-deficiency anemia, 1.4%.

Researchers also found that few kids received nutritional counseling after getting their GLP-1 prescription. 

“Nutritional support needs to play a critical role once treatment with a GLP-1 medication is initiated,” Ryder said. “In our study, however, we found that only 5% of patients received nutritional counseling within 30 days of GLP-1 treatment and less than 25% received nutritional counseling within 6 months.”

More information

The Obesity Medicine Association has more on GLP-1 drug use among children and teens.

SOURCES: Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, news release, Sept. 21, 2026; Childhood Obesity, Sept. 21, 2026