Are GLP-1s Legit? with Dr. Ania Jastrebroff

Hasan Minhaj (0:00)

Okay, here's an admission. Despite having an Equinox membership, I am not a health expert. A lot of comedians will talk wild shit about doctors, diseases, vaccines, and then when they're checked on it, backpedal with the, hey, I'm just asking questions. But I, Hasan Minhaj, pledge to you, if I ever ask a question about health, it will be to a doctor, not RFK Jr., not Aaron Rodgers, and not to my friend who's also a comedian. Understood? Awesome, great. Okay, now that that disclaimer is out of the way, I am here to talk to you about obesity. And specifically, about one substance that the weight loss community swears by. A miracle drug that will sharpen your jawline and shed six inches off your waist.

I'm talking about willpower.

SPEAKER_2 (0:42)

Not what you capable of, is what you willing to do.

SPEAKER_3 (0:44)

True fucking willpower. If you have to ask how to get motivated to go to the gym, you don't want enough.

Hasan Minhaj (0:51)

Get up!

SPEAKER_4 (0:54)

Get up!

Ania Jastreboff (0:56)

Stop being lazy!

Hasan Minhaj (0:58)

Ask a certain kind of fitness influencer and they will tell you that the key to achieving 6% body fat is just wanting it. But clearly, and that's ridiculous, there are looks maxers that do nothing but take gym selfies all day and there are obese HVAC guys who work 10 hour shifts outside in the sun. Laziness has nothing to do with obesity. Another thing I won't be doing in this episode, making fun of overweight and obese people, because for one, it's hack. But also it's bad business. They are statistically more than half of my audience.

7 out of 10 American adults are overweight or obese. And obesity has tripled since the early 1960s. What changed?

Not our basic biology. I mean, something possibly happened that made Ed Sheeran lose his balls. But other than that, it's basically been the same. But what drastically changed is what scientists call our OBSAgenic environment. Our foods are more processed. We drive instead of walking. And we are sleeping less and stressing more. Living in America is like living in a first floor apartment that they're doing road work next to. I mean, there's just a fucking jackhammer outside your window 24 hours a day, seven days a week going, you're on midterms.

SPEAKER_4 (2:02)

Lindsay Clancy.

Hasan Minhaj (2:05)

The fact is, you cannot willpower yourself to 155 pounds when all your food is shit. You work an email job and you are up until 1 a.m. every night scrolling on TikTok because every time you read a caption that says, wait for it, you cannot physically stop yourself from waiting for it. God damn it. The wait for it is never worth it. But I fall for it every goddamn time. And look, I'm not naïve. I'm not saying obesity is solely the result of highways in the McRib. People have been overweight forever. And we know that because people have been trying to lose weight forever. During the 19th century, socialites chugged vinegar to stay thin. And in the 20s, Lucky Strike promoted the cigarette diet. They were like, reach for a cigarette instead of a sweet, which you couldn't do today because people just vape.

And all those flavors are sweets. I mean, every time I do a live show, you see someone sucking tiramisu out of a thumb drive. are getting popcorn lung and type two.

Anyone my age probably remembers the bullshit fad diets that caught on in the early 2000s. You had Paleo, Atkins, the South Beach diet, which despite the name is not just cocaine. I'm pretty sure that's a starch. Then of course, there were the diet pills. Everything from Bunker Busters for your colon to straight up Speed. I mean, housewives were chewing crank like they're the shortstop for the 84 Mets or a white ninth grader. In the 1970s, the diet pill market got so flooded that companies had to do anything they could to stand out. There was Dexatrim and Hungrex and Diotech in one brand name that definitely got some attention in the 1980s.

But not the right kind of attention.

SPEAKER_6 (3:34)

Why take diet pills when you can enjoy AIDS? I was overweight and looked terrible, but AIDS helped me lose 46 pounds.

SPEAKER_2 (3:42)

With AIDS, I ate less, so the weight came off. To help keep it off when I sometimes want things loaded with calories, AIDS helps put me in control.

SPEAKER_3 (3:49)

Let the AIDS Plan teach you how to take off weight and help keep it off. Try Peanut Butter AIDS.

Hasan Minhaj (3:54)

Peanut Butter AIDS. Ironically, peanut butter is the best way to get a monkey to suck your d***.