[WLSNewsBot]

Child weight-loss surgeries becoming common (Telegraph)

NEW YORK - As the popularity of stomach surgery has skyrocketed among obese adults, a growing number of doctors are asking, "Why not children, too?" For decades, the number of kids trying weight-loss surgery has been tiny.

published Fri, 09 Feb 2007 16:50:05 GMT

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[DocSanae]

Thomas Wadden, an obesity expert at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, said surgery can be of immense benefit to some teens, especially those already experiencing health problems.

But he also advised caution.

Egged on by TV shows and commercials expounding the benefits of weight-loss surgery, adult patients have begun showing up at Penn's Center for Weight and Eating Disorders demanding an operation as an easy first step to thinness.

"When we ask them, 'What have you done so far to lose weight?' The patients say, 'Nothing,"' Wadden said. "They're going right to a $25,000 operation for which they are ill-prepared."

It would be tragic, he said, to see the same phenomenon repeated among children.

This is the crux of this surgery. Have you done everything else, exhasuted your options before turning to this?
We need to educate ourselves and our children to prevent childhood obesity, instead of looking for a solution without even making the effort for prevention.