According to the American Association of Bariatric Surgeons there will soon be more than 150,000 obesity surgeries performed per year. Likely candidates for lap-band or stomach stapling are people with a body mass index of 40 or more.
Body mass is a number indicating a ratio between a person’s height and weight. Obesity is considered to be the condition of being more than 30% over a person’s ideal weight. Generally, a person would be considered a potential candidate for surgery when 100 pounds more than ideal weight has been sustained.
At least those are the minimum standards. In reality, though minimally invasive, these surgeries are still methods of last resort. Traditional diet and exercise programs are advised for most people. In fact traditional diet and exercise programs are required for a period of six months before surgery.
But for that small percentage of patients who really need them weight loss surgeries can be life saving. The decision to perform obesity surgery is still a clinical one. These surgical approaches involve restricting stomach size and thus food intake rather than the removal of adipose tissue (liposuction) which is performed for cosmetic purposes.
These obesity surgeries are performed on patients who typically have little or no success with traditional weight loss methods. Often they are people for whom weight control is an inherited problem. They are always people who are considered to have a future that will look bleak medically, economically and socially without these drastic measures.
Despite the fact that obesity surgery is often expensive and increasingly an uninsured medical cost, it can be the treatment method of choice. People who are in marginal health may need to undergo a period of preoperative health improving regimes. Most of the weight loss will occur within 18 months of surgery. Follow up care and monitoring may be lifelong.