Hey there, it's Dr. Susan Peirce Thompson, and this week I want to talk about the impact of our obesity, our obesogenic food environment, the ultra-processed foods and our addiction to them, and now our fascination collectively with GLP-1 weight-loss drug medications, on our healthcare costs and the businesses that are absorbing those costs and all of us and our health insurance premiums that are going up.
Health insurance premiums have been going up. I don't know if you've noticed, at Bright Line Eating® we pay for a hundred percent of the healthcare costs of our employees. When we started our company 11 years ago, those costs were like this per employee. And then they grew and then they grew and then they grew and then they grew. I'm not sure, but they might be five times higher than they were 11 years ago. I could be wrong about that. But they have grown a lot and they're growing by 25% a year or something like that. It is astounding how hugely healthcare costs are going up just for the average person. Now, our employees are lucky. We absorb that cost for them, but they experience it because we are not able to raise salaries as fast as we would if we weren't absorbing all those healthcare costs. It's an issue.
In 2024, in a lot of states, Blue Cross Blue Shield, which is one of the biggest healthcare companies, registered losses because GLP-1 medications are now making up 10% or more of all their pharmacy spends. It's getting really expensive to pay for this stuff, and diabetes is still on the rise. Obesity is still on the rise. Heart disease is still on the rise. The food industry is making out like bandits, and we're all left holding the bag.
Here's what's interesting. 11 years ago, when I first got the message to write the book, "Bright Line Eating," and I got the message sitting in my morning meditation, that's what felt like it happened. The universe just said that I needed to write a book called, "Bright Line Eating." What it felt like at that time was I was sitting there aware of some information that addiction was driving a lot of our obesity, that Bright Lines, clear boundaries against sugar, flour, snacking could be used effectively by anyone who wanted to lose their excess weight and keep it off to experience food freedom, shed their excess weight, and that Bright Lines work and that although most people don't think they work because they think you have to eat to live, so therefore you can't eliminate all food groups, but they're not thinking clearly. Sugar's not a food group. You absolutely can eliminate sugar. And what's more, when you do, you don't crave it. You stop thinking about it over time. You really do.
I knew that I was aware of all this stuff, and I became aware just prior to that meditation session just before that, I was reading this book by Roy Baumeister called, "Willpower," and I read that book knowing quite a bit about Roy. I used to teach psychology in college and in my Psych 101 class, I was often saying like, here's another subfield of psychology that Roy Baumeister founded. He's one of the most prolific, brilliant consequential psychologists in the world. He's written more articles, more books than anyone I know or I know of. And in his book, "Willpower," he was talking about bright lines and what they are and how they're good for issues of temptation and willpower control. Then he wrote this sentence that was something like bright lines may be great for bolstering your willpower in lots of scenarios, but they obviously won't work for all problems. A dieter cannot abstain from all food.
It was just after that I had this meditation where the universe said, write a book called, "Bright Line Eating." The feeling was that the gap, the chasm, the need, the lack, the vacuum in the world of ignorance, of darkness, of lack of understanding on this topic that I knew so much about and that I was living and breathing in and kind of assumed everybody knew about in that moment that I read that bit in that book, I realized, no, people don't know about this. If I don't write this book and get it out there in the world, a New York Times bestseller read by thousands of people, if I don't get this book out in the world, that darkness will persist. Maybe not absolutely, maybe not forever, but for longer than it needs to get this book out in the world. The need in the world pulled this book out of me.
As I stand right here today, it feels like something very similar is happening. Over the last few years I've been watching the landscape unfold. I've been watching people flock to GLP-1 medications in droves. I don't think that's such a bad thing. I'm very neutral about these medications. I am. I'm not pro medication. I am pro-choice about the medication. I think that they're a good tool for a lot of people, but they don't solve the problem. They're a tool that is part of the solution for a lot of people. I'm fine with that, but they're not a silver bullet and 85% of people are getting off of them within two years. They come in with expectations that it's just going to solve the problem, and then they lose some weight, but then they plateau out. They're getting off the drug, they're regaining their weight. Basically, these drugs have created yet another revolving door in the endless cycle of dieting that people are experiencing. That's not helpful. They need to be paired with a program that is sustainable, that is long term.
So, I'm watching people not understand that, and I'm watching companies hemorrhage cash, health insurance companies, and then all the big companies, I mean, Bright Line Eating pays, actual premiums. We pay for Blue Cross Blue Shield or whatever health insurance our employees sign up for. Most big companies don't do that anymore. As a matter of fact, we've considered stopping. The premiums themselves are so expensive you feel like you do better just paying the bills directly yourself, which is what most big companies do. They're not going through insurance companies. They are the insurance company. They've got enough employees that they just make employees pay for some of their healthcare costs and they're the insurance company, and then they cover whatever expenses. There are these big companies, IBM, and Amazon, and Cisco, and Microsoft, these companies don't use health insurance companies. They self-insure, and they're all drowning from GLP-1 medication costs, if they're covering them at all.
Now, a lot of companies aren't covering them, and then they're just being beset by people complaining like, "How come you're not covering this?" But they're still paying for the diabetes, they're still paying for the heart disease. These are all things that Bright Line Eating could help with so much. I'm starting to feel like the need of the people who need a solution and the companies who need there to be an effective solution is pulling Bright Line Eating into the space. I'm feeling like Susan Peirce Thompson and Bright Line Eating used to be Velcroed together like this, and I'm feeling Bright Line Eating, breaking away and yearning to become the business to business solution that these companies need because they do. They need someone to come in and say, "We've got a behavioral non-pharmacological solution that can produce the same weight loss results as those drugs. And oh, by the way, treat the diabetes and the heart disease even more effectively. Partner with us and way cheaper than GLP-1 medications. No one else can do it." I'm looking around, I'm like, nobody else can do it. If we don't step up and become that solution, I don't know that anybody else will. The companies will just keep spending all this money or denying coverage for GLP-1 medications. People will keep paying for GLP-1 medications. Going on them. Getting off them. Going on them. Getting off them. Round and round they go. The diabetes will keep going up. The heart disease will keep going up, though obesity will continue to not be solved. Steady state year after year after year. We got to get involved.
Here's what we're going to do. We're going to start to explore the business to business space. Maybe you can help, are you in HR in a company of over 500 people or the C-Suite or in finance or in benefits or something like that? Are you married to someone who is, do you know someone who is directly a decision maker at one of these companies? Maybe a big company with 10,000 employees, 50,000 employees. We're curious about hearing from you, and maybe we could work together to do a little program in your company with Bright Line Eating. Save you guys some money. Maybe it would be just simple like you'd let your employees know that Bright Line Eating was covered by the FSA, HSA, HRA dollars that they've already got in their account. Maybe we would partner more deeply and actually you would pay for part of the Bright Line Eating Boot Camp, and they would pay for some, and you would get the benefit of your healthcare costs going down. Whatever. We could find potentially a way to work together to see if we can start to directly work with businesses to help to solve this hemorrhaging of cash that's happening from the ill health caused by our terrible food environment and people's addiction to those foods.
What we've got down below this vlog is just a simple link to a very simple Google form just asking who are you, what company, how large is it, etc. Fill out that form. If you're someone who is associated with a company that might be interested, what'll happen is someone from the Bright Line Eating Team will be back in touch with you within 72 hours. We've got a beautiful two page little trifold that you could give to people at your company to explain the basics of what Bright Line Eating is. We'd be looking to set up a meeting to just talk about getting the ball rolling, what it might look like, just very preliminary conversations, and then we'll take it from there if anything makes sense.
Let's get going on this. We have other avenues that we're pursuing as well for longer term, bigger picture, more professional, let's really build out an offering and work with some large companies. But I was also just curious. We've got a lot of people in our network and there's nothing like a warm introduction from someone who's actually been benefiting from Bright Line Eating. So, I was just curious. Maybe we got someone in our network that would be interested in taking Bright Line Eating into their company. Bright Line Eating is going to be looking to move more and more in this direction because it's needed. If we don't step up, I don't think anyone else will. It's the calling. It's like the vacuum, the gap, the need is pulling Bright Line Eating forward into that space. I think it's where the future lies for us. Click down below if you're one of those folks. If not, thanks for watching. That's the weekly vlog. I'll see you next week.
