I caught a YouTube “short” a couple weeks ago by Scott Galloway (Prof G Markets) that talked about the declining business at many fast food places. You can view that video here. Galloway suggested, half-joking/half-seriously, that some of the decline is likely attributed to the proliferation of GLP-1 medications in the population.
If you haven’t kept up with the news on these, they were first developed to treat Type II diabetes in adults, and through that use, it was discovered that they were also tremendously effective at facilitating weight loss. Today an estimated 30-million Americans are taking these medications.
I won’t dive into the science but in general, it has an impact on the impulses we have that urge us to eat when we’re not hungry and has some relationship to the dopamine reward pathway in our brains.
- I wrote about dopamine and fiber arts in an earlier post.
Six months ago, my primary care doctor recommended that I go on one of these meds, for health (metabolic and cardiovascular) reasons, and I argued with her. I loathed the idea of chasing the next “fad” diet, but she was able to speak scientifically about the pros and cons, and I decided to give it a try.
In addition to losing weight in a manner that I’ve never seen (even after years on programs like Noom and WW), my lab values have improved significantly, including my lipid profile (cholesterol, etc.). I have ALSO seen my interest in snacking, as well as shopping, browsing in stores, and buying things, plummet.
In research papers this is referred to as anhedonia, which is defined as “…the inability to experience joy or pleasure.“
In general, doctors monitor this in their GLP-1 patients. For me it has impacted behaviors that I could classify as somewhat problematic to straight-up problematic. These include shopping when I am bored, as well as eating when I am not hungry, but still have an urge to “taste” something. This effect has had a direct, and positive, impact on my discretionary spending as well as my health.
I can also share that I am LESS likely to want to crochet, knit, or sew, but those activities have not been as impacted as eating and shopping. I still enjoy them but have found that I am less “frantic” about finding time to engage. If I have time, and it feels right, I’ll grab a WIP or head to my sewing room. If not, I find something else to do.
I was thinking about all of this when I had to run into a Marshall’s store to grab the spritz I use before blow-drying my hair. As I walked back through the store, I realized that there are SO MANY tzatchkes placed strategically to catch our attention. There are doodads galore and many of them are darned tempting to stop and consider, BUT do we need any of them? Same with the aisles of snack foods, although I admit that Marshall’s and TJ Maxx are my go-to places when I want to make a gift basket for someone BECAUSE of the variety of snacks available.
After navigating the sea of intentional temptations in Marshall’s, I thought about the local, upcoming Yarn Crawl. I can say that my own experience with Yarn Crawls has been that I get all googly eyed about the yarn and the promotions and specials and buy yarn I have NO plan for, and sometimes even kits that are still sitting in sealed bins in my house. In fact, on my last Yarn Crawl (3+ years ago), I spent more than $550 on yarn that is still sitting in my house and waiting for me to get inspired.
After that realization, I lost my “urge” to do yarn crawls – and that was well before I was even acquainted with the possibility of being on a GLP-1. Today I can say without hesitation that I have zero interest in participating in one, and to be honest, I feel conflicted about that.
I recognize that our local fabric, quilting and yarn stores NEED customers to want to shop in their stores. They cannot survive if we ALL lose our interest in spending money on fabric and yarn. Observing my own diminished interest in browsing and buying makes me wonder, as Scott Galloway did about fast food, if the fiber arts community is going to be impacted by the dual wave of an increased interest in stash-busting before/instead of buying, PLUS people being on GLP-1 medications.
I don’t pretend to know the “answer” to this challenge for local fabric and yarn shops. While this post is about not feeling the urge to browse or shop any more, the issues around small businesses remaining viable is much larger and more complex, and includes factors such as razor thin margins and unpredictable demand. The downward pressure (on shopping behaviors) that are common for people on GLP-1s will likely have at least some impact on small fiber arts businesses.
The research seems to suggest that small businesses which survive are the ones that successfully incorporate COMMUNITY with their inventories. In fiber arts space this means classes, crochet/knitting open sessions, and other similar events that bring people together. While I recognize that it is EXTREMELY easy for me to pontificate about this, don’t shoot the messenger (I’m just quoting research papers and articles!). Still, I think it’s worth THINKING about if we care about our fellow artists who have stores in our communities.
How we can help
We can start by making fewer, but more intentional purchases and focus on our local small businesses. We can support them when they hold EVENTS. We can support their social media algorithms by following, liking and sharing their information. We can refer people to them who ask about where they can purchase ‘XYZ’ in our areas. We can resist the urge to order things that are cheaper and will arrive in 2 days (or less) and pivot projects to things we can do with supplies from our local shops. If asked, we can communicate what we would like to see MORE of in our local fabric or yarn stores.
Most of all we can remember that they’re doing the BEST they can and often with limited resources, so we should be kind – always, show up as we can, and be supportive.
If ALL of us do a little, this is not a hard task. It just takes each of us remembering to think of our local fabric and yarn shops, and give them some of our time, attention and money.
(C) 2026 Stitch ‘n Dish