Exclusive | Meet the parents putting kids on Ozempic and its dividing doctors: Dont fully understand long-term effects

By the time he turned ten, Jenna Ceriani’s son was too heavy to play football.The local league kicked the budding ballplayer out after he tipped the scales at 155 pounds — well above their 125-pound cap.

The middle schooler’s weight had become a safety liability for smaller players on the team, they explained.“Every time I tackle someone, they call me a fat ass,” Ceriani, who comes from the Boston area, recalled her rejected son telling her.She recounted that even before he got the boot, he’d stopped wanting to go to practice.

“There was name-calling.It really did a number on his confidence.”Always a “bigger kid,” hovering in the 99th percentile for weight, he’d already been struggling with sleep apnea, had undergone surgery to remove his tonsils and adenoids, and was advised to lose weight by his doctors.And with health problems running in the family, the issue extended beyond fitting into a uniform.

“You want them to grow up healthy and not have diabetes,” she told The Post.With limited options remaining, the Cerianis made a provocative choice — to put their son on a GLP-1.And not only for their son, but also their 14-year-old daughter, who struggled with food noise, metabolic dysfunction, and was an extremely picky eater.Ceriani told The Post that for her son especially, the decision to try GLP-1 came only after years of stress and frustration from a revolving door of specialists trying to find a resolution for his growing health issues, and feeling helpless.“Does he need medication to do everything?” she questioned her doctor’s treatment plans.

“Even the sleep apnea doctor said he needs to lose weight, so why is it so hard for him to find a doctor to help him?Once reserved for adults with obesity, drugs like Wegovy and Zepbound are now emerging as increasingly popular solutions for overweight children.The parents and health professionals alike insist they’re not being used as cosmetic weight-loss drugs for children, but...