At 18st, 14-year-old William’s relationship with food was ruining his physical and mental health.

‘I was buying him double-XXL men’s clothes. He had to use an inhaler at school. He had to stop playing rugby,’ says his mum, Lizzie.

Bullied by his classmates (‘the usual names – fatty and stuff like that’), William became reclusive. ‘He never went out. He would go to school, come home, spend all his time in his bedroom on his PlayStation,’ she says.

The more isolated he became, the greater his compulsion to eat.

‘I think it was an obsession, the food,’ says Lizzie. ‘He wasn’t happy unless he was chewing on something. He enjoyed it to the point he made himself feel sick.’

Until William started using fat jabs, that is. Lizzie began injecting her son with a GLP-1 drug, which mimics the body’s natural hormones to reduce appetite and slow stomach emptying, in February 2025.

He was prescribed Wegovy, the only GLP-1 licensed for teens, by Dr Sindy Newman at Diet UK Clinics, the first private clinic to administer weight-loss jabs to children.

Within seven months, he had lost more than four stone. The inhaler has gone, he’s picked for the rugby team all the time now and Lizzie can rarely keep him home.

When she and I speak, William, now 15, is out on his bike. ‘He’s a completely different boy,’ she says.

When Dr Newman started prescribing weight-loss jabs to children aged between 12 and 17 last January, she was something of an outlier. For all the proven success of fat jabs among adults, relatively little had been studied about their effects on children – and the thought of pumping boys and girls with a powerful molecule in the name of weight loss was concerning for many.

Wegovy’s Danish manufacturer Novo Nordisk said there wasn’t enough evidence to even submit Wegovy for use by under-18s to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), the body that decides which medicines are effective and good value for the NHS. As a result, NICE is unable to make a recommendation as to whether it should be used among teens in the health service and the extent to which it is administered has long been mired in mystery.

This week, however, NHS England figures reveal more than 400 children have been prescribed Wegovy on the NHS at its Complications from Excess Weight (CEW) clinics, established in 2021 to help obese children.

It is the first official data from these clinics and the NHS’s first admission that GLP-1 drugs – offered to up to a third of the children seen – are a routine part of its treatment plan.

For all the controversy, there is clearly a need. Some 6,497 obese children aged 17 and younger have been treated at the clinics, with 1,088 of those children aged just five to eight, many developing serious health problems such as type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure because of their weight, with medication needed to stop them ‘dying decades too soon’.

While the 400 on NHS weight-loss jabs have been treated across 39 clinics, Dr Newman’s single clinic currently has 209 patients receiving injections.

‘We’re getting referrals every week,’ she says. ‘It’s completely changing their lives.’

And Dr Newman, who founded Diet UK in Preston, Lancs, 35 years ago to treat overweight adults, seems less of an anomaly than a pioneer – at the forefront of treatment that, like it or not, looks set to become increasingly commonplace among our young.

‘I suppose there’s always a first, isn’t there?’ she says.

Not that she expected to become a trailblazer in teenage weight management when patients began to ask her in 2024 if she would treat their overweight children.

‘I said no, because I don’t treat anyone under 18,’ she recalls, suggesting they take their offspring to a GP, or paediatric psychiatrist instead.

‘I really thought the paediatric services would be taking this up. I thought there were other services within the NHS who would be looking after these children.’

In fact, as she discovered, ‘in the NHS the children’s clinics require extreme criteria before they will be treated’. And parents returned to her begging for help, ‘so I investigated’.

When Novo Nordisk told her the dose of Wegovy administered to children was the same as that given to adults, and she would therefore be able to prescribe it, she was ‘quite taken aback,’ she recalls. ‘I looked again in much more detail. Managing young people is different because they have dynamic physiology, they’re growing, their bodies are changing.’

But she noticed ‘a desperation and an urgency’ in the parents, ‘saying: “Please do it, don’t turn us away.”’

By the time they leave primary school aged ten or 11, one in three children in England are overweight or obese. The causes of childhood obesity are ‘very complex’ says Dr Newman.

Ultra Processed Food (UPFs), much of it aimed at children – think sugary breakfast cereals, chicken nuggets shaped like dinosaurs, the Starbucks Frappuccinos ubiquitous among teens – is ‘a huge part’.

‘The availability of these foods, and the way this age group has been targeted, means that’s the way this age group expect to eat.’

Also problematic is the sleep deprivation caused by gaming, which increases hormones that make us feel hungry, and the pressures of social media.

‘If young people aren’t a certain shape or size, there’s a lot of anxiety and that anxiety is going to stimulate more eating,’ she adds.

While children from more deprived households are often affected, Dr Newman stresses ‘it’s right across the board where we’re seeing this, even in homes where there are very conscientious parents’.

‘We’ve got a GP coming to me for treatment for his child. That’s reassuring. By the time they present to me the parents have tried everything.’ Of course, she adds, ‘a lot of adults are subject to the same kind of issues’.

William’s mum Lizzie, unable to work for health reasons, was overweight herself, having soared from 10st 7lb to 14st 9lb after William was born. ‘I never went out. It was a nightmare trying to buy clothes,’ she says.

While she tried to keep her son healthy with home-cooked meals such as chilli and bolognese, she noticed his appetite change when he was 12.

‘He started looking for extra food – more sweets, more crisps. We had a drawer that had treats and I was having to top it up more than I used to,’ she recalls. If it was empty, William got stressed. If she refused to go to the local shop to buy more snacks, ‘he’d have a bit of a meltdown, stomp up the stairs’.

The ‘constant arguing and fighting about food’ wore her down, she admits. ‘I’d say, “just take my card and go to the shop”. Instead of buying a normal-sized bar of chocolate, he’d come back with a sharing bar and sweets and a soft drink.

‘I used to say, “You don’t need all that”. I did try to talk to him about it. He would brush it off. I don’t think he understood the problems.’

Once a keen rugby and football player, William slowly became too big for sport. ‘He could never play a full game. He had to stop,’ says Lizzie, who remains friends with William’s father, from whom she split when their son was young.

She thinks William’s compulsion to eat might stem from ADHD, which a school psychologist suggested he might have. Like autism, ADHD can be linked to poor appetite control.

‘We never took him to the doctor because his dad didn’t want him to have that label,’ says Lizzie.

The name-calling got so bad William stopped going to school for a month – and then started at a new school, where he was also bullied.

William’s case is far from unique. ‘What I did find very early on, which was extremely distressing, was a lot of these children had been bullied,’ says Dr Newman.

‘I’m seeing them at this point of desperation. I have at least three or four who have attempted suicide. I find that utterly heartbreaking. That spurred me on to treat more young people.’

In addition to the home-cooked meals eaten together, Lizzie bought takeaways, and after a ‘full roast dinner’, there would be a tub of ice cream for each of them, too. ‘It was terrible, really,’ she says.

William also found the stash of crisps and chocolate she kept hidden for herself. ‘I felt I’d let him down. That made me feel worse.’

Her son would refuse to discuss his weight. ‘It was like he was in denial,’ says Lizzie. A quietly spoken boy, William tells me he felt ‘terrible’ being obese. ‘I had no confidence,’ he adds.

It was William’s father, after researching a solution online, who suggested William and Lizzie visit Diet UK early last year. ‘He said “if you want to do it, I’m happy to pay for you both”,’ recalls Lizzie, who until that point thought of fat jabs only in relation to famous names who’d used them.

Still, she asked her son if he wanted to try them, telling him: ‘It’s up to you.’

William admits feeling ‘a bit iffy about it at the start’, but Dr Newman, who saw them both via video consultation after they had registered with the clinic, put their mind at ease, and they both decided to give weight-loss jabs a go.

With under-18s, the parent is always present. ‘We go through everything – medical, social, gynaecological history – some of these girls have started their periods,’ says Dr Newman, who adds that parents are often also very distressed by this point ‘and sometimes feel very guilty’.

Measurements of the child’s chest, waist, hips, upper arms and upper thigh are taken on the call as well as their weight. Children have to weigh over 60kg and have a Body Mass Index (BMI) at, or above, the 95th centile (higher than 95 per cent of their peers).

‘Most of my patients are on or above the 98th centile,’ she says. The heaviest teen she is treating is a 16-year-old boy with a BMI of 50. ‘They’re being home-schooled, not moving much, depressed.’

She won’t treat children she feels are under pressure from their parents to get injected.

‘There was one child totally uncooperative because of the pressure she was under. The mother was frustrated. So these things come to light. But most children are ready for treatment. I always ask: “Do you want to do this? How do you feel about what we’re doing today?” And they want help.’

William hasn’t had any side-effects from Wegovy and Dr Newman says around 75 per cent of her under-18 patients have no or ‘very minor’ side-effects.

‘We’ve only had two patients who have withdrawn from the programme. One was a 13-year-old girl who just didn’t like having injections. Another child did have quite a lot of abdominal pain and diarrhoea. She was 14. The incidence of side-effects is very low,’ says Dr Newman, and, she believes, significantly outweighed by the risks.

‘The implications of chronic obesity are cancers, diabetes, high blood pressure, premature death. So if you don’t treat the children, you are sentencing them to a premature death. That makes me nervous. That makes me very upset.’

In his first week of injecting 2.4mg of Wegovy into his leg, which Lizzie says William has never complained hurt, he lost half a stone, along with his interest in chocolate. ‘I think he thought he was going to be able to eat the stuff he was eating before,’ says Lizzie, who started on Wegovy at the same time. ‘But it was a very big menu change for both of us.’

Out went pizza, chips, chicken nuggets, chips and potatoes; in their place steak, chicken and lots of vegetables.

‘I think he felt a bit embarrassed to begin with,’ says Lizzie. ‘But after losing the first two stone, he would be happy to tell anybody. If there was a friend over, he would say, “Do you want to come and see my mum inject me?”’

They kept regular video calls with Dr Newman, who makes appointments with her young patients after their first and third weekly doses.

William’s monthly dose of Wegovy costs £250 and Dr Newman charges an initial £100 consultation fee. A child psychotherapist is also available for an extra £60 an hour who helps teens needing additional support.

‘They all have my number, so if they have any issues or side-effects I encourage them to contact me,’ says Dr Newman.

‘Her attitude with the kids is completely different to grown-ups. We talked about my targets,’ says Lizzie, who has lost five stone. ‘But she doesn’t talk about targets with the kids.’

Nonetheless, William, who’s grown from 5ft 10in to 6ft since starting weight-loss jabs and weighs 13st 13lb when we speak, wants to get down to 12st 7lb.

‘Because these children are still growing, they don’t always lose weight in the same way as adults,’ says Dr Newman.

‘Sometimes the weight stagnates, but we find they’ve grown a bit in height.’

How long they should inject themselves for is a ‘complicated’ question, she concedes.

‘The aim of treatment is for them to withdraw and manage their weight themselves, although there are huge challenges in an obesogenic environment.’

There is the risk, of course, that surrounded by friends all eating fast food, the weight will pile back on when they stop.

But a lot of her adult patients have managed to quit and control their weight, she points out.

And perhaps it will be the same for children such as William. Lizzie is confident he can stick to his new diet.

‘I think he knows he can’t eat rubbish now. I think that’s got into his head,’ she says.

The benefits of his weight loss have been so profound it seems churlish to point out that we still have no data as to any long-term risks of taking GLP1-s.

‘To be quite honest I haven’t even thought about long-term side-effects,’ says Lizzie.

For now, lowering her son’s risk of obesity-related disease is enough.

‘I’m just happy he’s lost weight, he’s much happier.’

Lizzie and William’s names have been changed.