Obesity surgery for children

Obesity in children is becoming an increasing problem which needs to be tackled. It is important that parents tackle this problem before it gets out of hand but for some children it can be too late and surgery may be required.

Obesity in children is a ‘new’ problem, in that it has only begun to increase in recent times. It is important to try to understand what exactly is causing this problem and why there may be a need for obesity surgery for children.

It is a shocking fact that around thirty percent of children eat fast food every day! There are fast food restaurants everywhere you look and they are increasing steadily. It is no wonder that this type of food is now the food of choice for so many youngsters. Children as well as adults, comfort eat and with statistics showing that bullying in children is rife, it can be difficult for a child to break the eating habit they are in. They may also be self conscious about exercising with classmates for fear of being ridiculed about the size of their bodies. This can reduce the amount of exercise that obese children are getting and reduce the amount of weight they are capable of losing. It is a vicious circle which they may find difficult to get out of. A lot of children don’t know how to exercise and eat healthy and it could be that they are learning bad habits in the home.

So what can be done to tackle the growing problem of obesity in children? Is obesity surgery for children the answer? Most people still do not feel that this is the answer but with obesity levels continuing to rise, others are asking what else can be done. There are problems facing surgery of this kind for children. The first is whether or not it is safe to carry out weight loss surgery in children and the other is how it will affect the patient in the long term.

It is difficult to provide an answer to how obesity surgery will affect children in the long term until more of this type of surgery is carried out. Because of the controversial nature of obesity surgery for children, there are not many patients who have had this procedure which means there are fewer patients to record data from. But alarmingly the numbers of children having weight loss surgery are steadily rising.

Of those teens that have had obesity surgery, they have proved to be superb candidates. They have warranted shorter hospital stays, speedier recovery times and fewer complications during surgery than their adult counterparts. Plus the death rate in obesity surgery for children is far less than that of adults.

Having said that, it would be much better for children to lose weight naturally as there are always going to be risks involved with surgery. Obesity surgery in children is rightly controversial and should only be considered if there are imminent health risks to the chid by not having the surgery.

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