Review of South Park: The End of Obesity (Paramount+), 50 minutes, 2024
The nation’s health care system has become so blatantly dysfunctional that the producers of the satirical television series South Park devoted an entire 50-minute episode to a serious matter—obesity—which manages to keep you laughing every single second.
Granted, it’s South Park, where obscenities and raunch proliferate like lobbyists on Capitol Hill, but “The End of Obesity” on Paramount+ is both funny and meaningful.
The episode takes on Big Pharma, Big Insurance, Big Hospitals, vanity, sloth, greed, and even wokeness, in one hilarious swoop.
No-Sweat Weight Loss
“The End of Obesity” zeros in on the craze for semaglutides—the injectable drugs Ozempic, Wegovy, and Rybelsus—which have developed a reputation for causing quick and easy weight loss.
Obesity is a serious problem in the United States, and the cure is not complicated: eat less, burn more calories. Millions of Americans struggle with their weight, almost as if food producers and the $93.8 billion weight-loss industry planned it that way.
The episode begins with a doctor telling teenager Eric Cartman and his mother that they must take drastic measures to combat Eric’s obesity.
“Exercise just doesn’t seem to work for him,” his mother complains.
Cue the angelic music. The doctor mentions semaglutides, “they are the active ingredient in Ozempic, a drug made for people with diabetes, but we now discovered they can help obese people lose vast amounts of weight.”
Big, Fat Cost
The doctor, sounding like a pharma sales rep, says, “Young man, how would like not to be fat anymore?” Eric and his mom are enthused until they hear the price tag is $1,200 a month. The doctor says insurance won’t cover the drug for weight loss, only diabetes, and if the family can’t afford it, tough luck.
The doctor says he wants to help Eric, so he writes him a prescription for “Lizzo.”
She’s “a really good singer who talks about body positivity and just being happy with the way you look,” the doctor says.
Eric is told to watch her videos five times a day, for life.
Seeking a Fix
The remainder of the episode shows the family’s quest for affordable semaglutides. Outraged that money should prevent help for someone with a health problem, Eric and his friends march into an insurance company and are greeted with open arms until they say they want to complain, not buy insurance.
Next, we see a group of suburban women who distinguish themselves by wearing midriff shirts exposing their six-pack abs. This group has been getting ample supplies of the semaglutides, and they even entice a suburban dad, a closet stoner, to join their “injection” parties.
Eric and his buddies figure out a solution: compound the drug themselves after watching YouTube videos and buying the raw ingredients from India.
Obesity Drug Cartels
A group of cereal industry executives get wind of the semaglutide craze and are outraged that it is cutting into their ability to get people addicted to sugar. The cereal market is behind “Lizzo,” which is not working. Later, the cereal execs stage a terrorist attack on the drug makers in India, led by a thug resembling Captain Crunch.
The terrorist attack causes a semaglutide shortage in the United States, which pushes everyone to desperation. The suburban moms become armed robbers, hitting drug stores and hijacking trucks delivering the weight-loss drugs.
Meanwhile, Eric keeps dreaming of being skinny so he can be cruel and make fun of other people.
Moral to the Story
Without spoiling the fun by telling how the story ends, it is safe to say the episode makes a point: in a distorted marketplace, special interests can compete against another to exploit consumers and undermine progress.
Markets depend on consumers being allowed to think and choose freely. When consumers are prevented from getting full information (censorship) or competing interests use the government to gain an unfair advantage (lobbying), markets cannot function as they should.
As “The End of Obesity” shows, these activities hurt people, and we all end up paying for it.
AnneMarie Schieber (amschieber@heartland.org) is the managing editor of Health Care News.
