The character Morpheus in the movie The Matrix offers the character Neo a choice between a blue pill and a red pill. Take the blue pill and you stay in the artificial world you believe exists. Take the red pill and you see reality.
Likewise, “one pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small,” sang Jefferson Airplane lead singer Grace Slick.
Both are examples of the "there's a pill for that" therapeutic culture in the United States, a societal preference for quick, convenient, and often pharmaceutical solutions to a wide range of physical and emotional discontents.
At the same time, there is a growing counter-movement that embraces "self-improvement" through lifestyle changes, alternative therapies, and holistic wellness practices.
To be sure, some people have health conditions unrelated to personal choices. High cholesterol levels are largely genetic for at least one out of 250 persons, one study suggests, although 10 percent of adults have high cholesterol levels.
The percentage of U.S. adults on GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic. Wegovy. Mounjaro and Zepbound, for example, could reach nine percent to 16 percent by about 2030, according to some estimates.
Some studies indicate that more than half of U.S. adults could be eligible, assuming they face risks from diabetes, obesity, or cardiovascular disease. Without question, consumer demand is fairly high.
One study suggests 12 percent of U.S. adults have taken GLP-1 drugs.
It isn't as easy or as quick, but for many, the choice is not blue pill or red pill or any pill, but the lifestyle changes (not especially easy or necessarily always convenient) that obviate the need for taking a pill.
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