#HealthInfo: Weight Loss Surgery (Bariatric Surgery)

Like adults, lots of teens wish they could change something about themselves. Fortunately, in some cases — take hair, for example — that's pretty easy to do. Kids can grow it long, cut it short, and if they don't like it, a new look is just a quick snip or a few skipped haircuts away.

But certain things are not easy to change. For the 1%-2% of U.S. teens who are severely obese, losing those extra pounds can be one of them. For some, sticking to a doctor-approved diet and exercise plan is enough to lose enough weight to improve their obesity-related complications, such as diabetes, heart disease, or sleep apnea. But for others, even major lifestyle changes aren't enough.

In these cases — where regular weight loss attempts have failed and medical problems persist — weight loss surgery or bariatric surgery might be an option.

About Bariatric Surgery
Bariatric surgery had its beginnings in the 1960s, when doctors first noticed that people who had portions of their stomach or intestines removed due to ulcers or cancer tended to lose a lot of weight after surgery, regardless of what they ate.

Doctors soon realized why: Not only could a smaller stomach hold less food at one time, but a shorter intestine couldn't absorb as many calories and nutrients for the body to use.

The field of weight loss surgery has come a long way since then, but is still based on those same two principles:

1. Restriction: restricting the amount of food a person can comfortably eat by reducing the size of the stomach

2. Diversion: diverting food around a portion of the small intestine (usually about 2 feet) so that less is absorbed by the body. Diversion also changes the levels of hormones and enzymes in the digestive tract that signal hunger and fullness, so a person feels fuller sooner.


Source from Kids Health.Org