Gastric Bypass is Never Your Only Option

What Does Your Scale Say?

I am doing my daily online reading when I came across a post talking about a female who went to the doctor about her weight loss and was told that her only option was to have gastric bypass.  Now the article doesn’t begin to tell me how much she weighs or anything like that.  I used to work with several people who went to the same doctor and were all told that they needed the gastric bypass.  Now short of being morbidly obese at 400 pounds plus, why wouldn’t you be given the opportunity to try to lose the weight first.

Even some teens are being told that they need gastric bypass.  Some of the have developed diabetes.  I think when it’s medically necessary with the ‘current’ situation then it should be done.  We seem to have become a society where we want it right now.  I’m certainly guilty of wanting to wear my ’skinny’ clothes right now but I know in my mind that I didn’t put it on overnight and it will take time to get it off.  That doesn’t even take into account cheating with eating foods that are not healthy.

To give you a snapshot of these ladies, my employer had about 400 people at that location on various shifts.  These ladies all worked first shift and had the same doctor and all eight of them had gastric bypass.  Now I can’t say that I’m for or against it, but please weigh out all of your options if that is on your agenda.  Each one of those ladies had ‘complications’.  Each of them had about 100 pounds to lose if you consider the charts that the doctor’s go by like a 5′5″ woman should weigh about 110 pounds.  I would venture to say that most 5′5″ women weigh more than that or is it me that snaps up all of the 14 regulars from the store?

One of the ladies cannot work again.  I was her supervisor and at first I thought she was playing.  Her system is so screwed up that she cannot drive let alone work at a job.  Most of the other ladies have had additional surgeries to repair problems.

Be very careful if a doctor says to you that gastric bypass is your only option.  Make sure you have explored other options like diet and exercise first.  It may not come off quickly, but you will be much healthier for it.  Is it worth it to potentially have complications?  Only you can decide that. 

Picture Credit:  Flickr