Obesity Surgery
Obesity is becoming a worldwide problem with 10 percent of all Australian adults, 20 percent of Americans and with 46 percent of men and 32 percent of woman obese in the United Kingdom is it no surprise that the government are taking drastic measures to try and reduce these figures by promoting healthy living, but sometimes healthy living doesn’t work and more severe steps need to be taken to ensure a healthy life. Obesity surgery is fast becoming a scapegoat for people who are morbidly obese. Although painful and a severe measure to loose weight people are becoming desperate and surgery seems to be their best option. There are a few surgeries available to obese patient but patients need to have lost some weight before the surgery is an option to them as being put under an anaesthetic while grossly overweight is extremely dangerous. Gastric stapling and gastric banding are the first two available operations. Gastric stapling is where the staple your stomach so that you cannot eat very much and gastric banding is basically the same, they put what is like and elastic band around your tummy so after eating only a small meal you feel full and bloated. Both operations are reversible but quite dangerous, early problems are infections, stomach leakage and thrombosis. Stapling is done through a stomach incision whereas banding can be done by keyhole surgery and loosened by n injection of need be (or tightened if not enough weight is lost). A bowel bypass is also another procedure for obesity surgery. This is where doctors bypass about three quarters of your bowel and most of the food is taken to your large intestine. The benefit of this is that less food is absorbed therefore less fat is taken in. There are quite a few disadvantages to this procedure as well, in the early stages after the operation diarrhoea is severe, and you can suffer from mineral deficiencies, nausea, wind and abdominal cramps. This is a major operation and is not carried out frequently. Another operation used to tackling obesity in the past was jaw wiring, you would have wires and screws implanted through surgery to keep your mouth almost completely shut, therefore to eat it has to be done slowly and all food must be pureed. This is no longer carried out unless there are extremely strange circumstances. Obesity surgery is not a long term solution and should only be carried out if all other methods fail, they are painful and success rates aren’t always guaranteed. Try the easier healthier way, a balanced diet with sensible eating and moderate exercise, what have you got to loose? Except weight!
This article is part of Health and Fitness Solutions section on beating obesity
