Children’s nutritional needs deserve attention from the start of GLP-1 treatment, as a study found limited counseling and nutritional deficiencies, most commonly vitamin D deficiency, during crucial years of growth.
Nearly one in six children prescribed GLP-1 medications for weight loss, prediabetes, or type 2 diabetes was diagnosed with a nutritional deficiency within a year of starting treatment. The findings draw attention to nutritional care during childhood and adolescence, when a shortage of key nutrients can have lasting effects on growth and development.
Few children receive early nutritional counseling
The study, published in Childhood Obesity, used national administrative claims data from 2017 to 2022 covering more than 100 million patients. Researchers identified 2,031 children ages 10 to 17 who used GLP-1 medications, met the study’s requirements for continuous insurance enrollment, and had no previously diagnosed nutritional deficiency. Within the first year of treatment, 16.8% received such a diagnosis.
Most children in the study were prescribed liraglutide, which accounted for 78.6% of prescriptions, followed by dulaglutide at 10.4% and semaglutide at 9.1%. The researchers also examined whether patients received nutritional counseling after treatment began.
“Nutritional support needs to play a critical role once treatment with a GLP-1 medication is initiated,” said senior author Justin Ryder, PhD, vice chair of research for the Department of Surgery at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and associate professor of surgery and pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “In our study, however, we found that only 5% of patients received nutritional counseling within 30 days of GLP-1 treatment and less than 25% received nutritional counseling within 6 months.”
Vitamin D tops the deficiency list
Vitamin D deficiency was the most common nutritional deficiency recorded, affecting 12.4% of the children within a year of starting GLP-1 treatment.
“As appropriate pediatric use of GLP-1s becomes more widespread, we need to understand the risks during periods of rapid growth and pubertal development,” Ryder said. “Nutrients such as vitamin D, iron and calcium are of particular concern during adolescence, when deficiencies may have lasting implications for skeletal health and overall development.”
“We hope that our study findings bring much-needed recognition to the importance of proactive nutritional management when GLP-1s are prescribed to children, as opposed to waiting until a nutritional deficiency is diagnosed,” Ryder said. “Knowing the risks, we are in a much better position to prevent harm to children treated with GLP-1s during a pivotal period in their lives.”
Reference: “Nutritional Deficiencies, Complications, and Nutrition Therapy/Counseling in Pediatric Patients Using GLP-1 Receptor Agonists” by Kirk W. Kerr, Andrew T. Chang, Suela Sulo, John T. Stutts, Thadchaigeni Panchalingam and Justin R. Ryder, 17 September 2026, Childhood Obesity.
DOI:10.1177/21532176261486979
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