Should restaurants adapt their menus to accommodate those on weight loss medication?

Kelsey Smith has lost more than eleven stone since starting Mounjaro a year and a half ago.

The 29-year-old from West Lothian was three months postpartum after having her first child and at the heaviest she’d ever been – around 22 and a half stone – when she decided to go on the medication.

With both her sister and mum also using the injections, she says having family support makes managing meals easier, but eating out can be a different story.

She told STV News: “I do wish there was smaller plate options out there for people on medicated weight loss.

“Even when I used to go out with my wee granny, pensioners meals, they were still massive.

“Sometimes I’ve actually went out [to a restaurant] and I’ve said to them, ‘Look, I’m on medicated weight loss, is there any chance I could just order a smaller plate or even a kid’s meal?’ But some places won’t let you do that.”

“Even having a menu that you can ask for that’s got the calories per portion would be great because some places don’t offer that.

“Often I think, even if you’re not on a weight loss medication people are calorie counting and putting it into their apps and things like that so I just think it would be so helpful.”

This year, high‑profile chefs including Heston Blumenthal and Jack Stein have responded to changing appetites linked to weight‑loss medications by introducing scaled‑down tasting menus and portion‑controlled pop‑up dining experiences tailored for diners on medical weight‑loss journeys.

Recent data suggests that over 300,000 people are being privately prescribed weight loss drugs in Scotland.

Kelly Fairweather, the owner of The Selkie in Dundee says she’s noticed a recent change in customers’ eating habits.

She told STV News: “People are eating less – it isn’t as big a problem for us as other people in the industry because we’re are not asking people to eat a big plate of the one food, so it’s not like there’s your one meal.

“What we’ll see is people ordering dishes to share but there won’t be ordering as many.”

From the New Year, the tapas-style restaurant will be changing it’s menus to include calorie and protein information to better support those monitoring their intake.

Kelly said: “We already do small plates and a lot of those small plates are quite high protein or pure protein.

“All we’re going to do is put information out there that goes along with them and look at the plates and see where we can introduce more protein and take away some of the carbs and macro count that so that people are more informed.

“It’s not just for people who are on things like mounjaro or ozempic, it’s also for people who are thinking ‘new year, new me’ – going to go to the gym and macro counting or calorie counting.

But as she adapts to accommodate more customers, Kelly says there’s no one-size-fits-all solution.

“For the industry to survive, not everyone’s going to be able to completely bend their business plan,” Kelly added.

“It works for us, but it might not work for other people and you have to be careful about kind of making a blanket situation.”

Like many others, Kelsey believes she may be on the injections for life.

She’d like to see more restaurants considering smaller portions so she can feel comfortable eating out, not just at home.

“This is such a normal thing now,” Kelsey said.

“Probably your next door neighbour’s on weight loss medication and you wouldn’t know about it because nine times out of ten people feel like like some certain stigma around it where actually there’s you’re just taking control of your life again.

“I know myself if a restaurant here said we’re going to offer maybe like more protein options and lower calorie options, I would be there, I would be first in the queue.”