BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (WKRC) – Kentucky’s third largest city has been named “Ozempic Town, USA.”
According to Bloomberg:The capital of Ozempic America is not Los Angeles or New York, but Bowling Green, Kentucky.
New York Post Reported About 4% of Bowling Green residents use weight-loss drugs, about 3% higher than in larger cities like Miami and Brooklyn. Bowling Green has a population of over 72,000 and a median household income of $45,812. From the U.S. Census Bureau.
Bowling Green has “more restaurants per capita than any other city in the United States” According to the city’s tourism bureau, The state also has the highest concentration of people prescribed weight-loss drugs in the United States, Bloomberg reported, citing data from Purple Labs.
PurpleLab tracks the majority of prescriptions covered by insurance companies. According to Bloomberg, the company doesn’t account for people who:
- People who pay out of their own pocket
- People using counterfeit drugs from small pharmacies, medical spas and online telemedicine operations
But such practices make up a growing part of the weight-loss drug economy, particularly in Bowling Green, which is all the more remarkable given that Kentucky’s Medicaid system doesn’t cover such products, Bloomberg reported.
Kentucky has one of the 10 highest rates of obesity in the country. Bowling Green is a middle-class town with several large employers that offer insurance plans that cover the injections. If you don’t have insurance, weight-loss injections can cost up to $1,000 a month, according to reports. Still, some uninsured locals are willing to pay the cost out of pocket, according to reports.
Those conditions put Bowling Green on track to become the Ozempic capital of the United States, according to Bloomberg.
“We’re country enough to be fat, but we’re smart enough to do something about it,” Mary Sansom, a retired teacher and Bowling Green resident, told Bloomberg.
