The National Post reports in its Tuesday, April 15, edition that a new Canadian guideline suggests that doctors consider weight-loss drugs for children as young as 12, rather than just waiting. The Post's Sharon Kirkey writes that Dr. Geoff Ball from the University of Alberta and co-chair of the guideline panel advises starting with dietary interventions and, if those do not work, to further reduce calorie intake before considering medications or bariatric surgery. "But there's no evidence to support that stepwise approach is effective." Instead, families and doctors should consider "all intervention options," he and his co-authours wrote, including the class of drugs known as GLP-1 receptor agonists, the drugs behind injectable weight-loss medications, Ozempic and Wegovy. Ozempic has not been approved for use in children. No weight loss drugs have been approved for the under 12s. a study published in 2022 in the New England Journal of Medicine found 62 per cent of the 12- to 17-year-olds who received a once-weekly injection of semaglutide, along with a lifestyle intervention, saw a weight loss of at least 10 per cent after 68 weeks. The study was paid for by Novo Nordisk, makers of Wegovy and Ozempic.