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GLP-1s, drugs designed to regulate blood sugar, weren’t supposed to disrupt how we eat. They were built for metabolic control, not cultural upheaval, but it’s their effect on appetite that’s been the plot twist.

Now, if you want to see how drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro have reshaped how we eat, don’t look to a scale or a lab report. Look at a restaurant menu.

It was actually back in 2005 that the first GLP-1 drug was approved to treat Type 2 diabetes, but unless you were directly affected, you probably didn’t hear about these sorts of drugs until the more potent Ozempic entered our cultural lexicon. Over the past couple of years, as millions of Americans began taking these GLP-1s — and as appetites have shrunk — restaurants started to notice.

Some of the changes? Downsized portions, cocktails losing their alcohol and protein pushing its way into everything from our morning coffee to ice cream cones. What began as a medical intervention is now rewriting the menu.

I’ll admit, I thought last August’s New York Times story about restaurants shrinking portion sizes in response to Ozempic was just clickbait. Mostly, it was my own ignorance. I thought of the drugs as something only celebrities and rich people were taking for vanity, and I didn’t understand how they actually work.

The reality is that 18% of Americans have taken a GLP-1 drug for one reason or another, and those numbers are expected to grow substantially this year as new pills hit the market and as prices come down. Essentially, these drugs mimic a naturally occurring hormone that regulates blood sugar, slows digestion and signals fullness to the brain, erasing hunger long before that “personal” pizza is finished.

The result is not just weight loss, but also a reset of appetite itself. GLP-1 medications normalize smaller appetites — and restaurants are starting to respond.