Bariatric surgery can result in significant weight loss in severely obese adolescents. Bariatric surgeons, who believe in childhood bariatric surgery, understand that with surgery cardiovascular disease, high-blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease and other obesity-related diseases can be prevented throughout a child or teenagers life, not only through childhood but throughout adulthood as well.
Growing up and being a teen is no easy feat. As many of us remember, being a teenager came with growing pains including SAT’s, college, and the future to just name a few. Though these times can be difficult being overweight is tougher, however being a morbidly obese teenager can be a nightmare. In the past, doctors have been extremely reluctant to perform a bariatric surgery on a child or teenager. This in turn skews the statistics within bariatric surgery for children. Typically, in the 1990’s, around 200 surgeries per year were performed on teenagers and children. Since 2003 this number has sharply risen to average around 700 bariatric surgeries per year. There may be a number of different reasons for this dramatic increase, but most believe that this is due to the astronomical increase in the number of obese children and teenagers.
Low income children and teenagers are at the most risk of becoming obese. According to the United States Federal Government a poverty stricken or low-income family brings in less than $20,000 per year for a family of four and $12,755 for a family of two. 20% of the children and teenagers, born into these low-income families, are obese and throughout the country face the same dilemmas for weight gain: Too many sugary sodas, too much television, and a fast-food diet. Economic barriers are mostly to blame for this problem.
Low-income families do not have the means for more healthy diets and physical activity opportunities for their children. Children born into more affluent households have more readily available access to grocery stores stocked with fresh vegetables and fruit and are usually more active throughout any given week.
The UCLA for Health Policy Research indicates that nearly one in five, or 18%, of low income teens did not get at least 60 minutes of physical activity in a week-the minimum amount of physical activity recommended by the 2005 federal Dietary Guidelines for Americans. This data further indicates affluent children and teens are more likely to participate in school and organized sports.
Childhood and teenage obesity can lead to several other health conditions that oftentimes come to the forefront when teenagers reach young adulthood and further. Though likely these health issues will manifest themselves during the childhood and teenage years, if these health issues bleed into adulthood they can be detrimental to the overall health and shorten the lifespan of the patient. The specific health conditions that an obese child or teen may face include: high-blood pressure, high cholesterol, cardiovascular disease, depression, type 2 diabetes and heart disease to just name a few.
Generally, most bariatric surgeons will not perform a weight-loss surgery on a child or teenager. However, surgeons across the United States disagree with this general outlook on adolescent bariatric surgery.
Some surgeons believe that a teenage bariatric surgery would cause additional surgeries and a potential plastic surgery to remove the “elephant skin.” Elephant skin is the excess skin that remains following losing significant-excess weight. In addition, bariatric surgeons argue that oftentimes parents of obese children and teenagers may be considering bariatric surgery for their child based on societal issues or embarrassment. Nevertheless, other bariatric surgeons stand by an aggressive surgical measure to tackle childhood and teenage obesity. These doctors believe that if an individual is 100 pounds or more overweight and has tried numerous diets and exercises then bariatric surgery would be right for them no matter what age.
