Bariatric Surgery and Teens

We’ve all seen on the news various reports on the growing problem of childhood obesity and obesity in teens. This is just another part of the larger obesity epidemic going on in this country. While efforts are being made to improve the diet of children and increase their activity level, there are many young people who continue to be well above the healthy weight for their height and age.

It should come as no surprise, then, that we at our New Haven, CT bariatric surgery center have been fielding questions about weight loss surgery for teenagers and adolescents. Clearly we would never consider the surgery for a pre-adolescent, but there are certain instances where teenagers who are morbidly obese will need to consider undergoing bariatric surgery. Of course, there are no easy answers to this and there are many factors to consider.

Dr. Elmer Valin and Dr. Ursula D. McMillian can discuss these matters in more detail during a consultation at our practice, but we did want to look at these matters in some detail right now. Again, this is not a conclusive bit of conjecture or even any sort of prognostication about the future of teenager weight loss surgery, but we hope that it will bring to light some things that need to be considered.

Currently, less than 1% of bariatric surgeries are performed on teenagers and adolescents. It should also be noted that there is still no long-term research about any adverse health affects on teenager or adolescent bariatric surgery patients. With that said, however, research has found that bariatric surgery is effective in teens. A clinical trial in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that teens who underwent bariatric surgery lost significantly more weight than teens who ate healthier and did more exercise. The surgery patients lost approximately 28% of their body weight while the non-surgery patients lost roughly 3% of their body weight.

In addition to the weight loss that the surgery group experienced, there are also other physiological and psychological factors to consider. For one, joint pain, muscle pain, and other aches in the body may be alleviated from this significant amount of weight loss. Psychologically, surgery patients may experience greater self-esteem and improved self-confidence due to this weight loss.

Of course, before a teenager would undergo New Haven, CT LAP-BAND®, his or her situation would need a full assessment. Usually the small amount of teenagers who have undergone weight loss surgery have been those who are morbidly obese and face a number of health problems in the immediate future due to their excess weight. These patients have also usually tried to lose weight through diet and exercise in the past with poor results. The mental age and maturity of the teenager needs to be taken into account as well, and indeed, the dedication to a healthy lifestyle and altered diet will need to be observed going forward.

Hopefully this has helped shed some light on the topic o teens and bariatric surgery. If you would like to discuss this in more detail, please contact our New Haven, CT weight loss surgery center today.