Gastric Bypass – The Response To A Man-made Problem

Obesity is as old as time itself and for many sufferers obesity is caused by genetic or medical problems. At present, however, the alarming growth in the rate of obesity is very much a man-made problem, fired in part perhaps by the availability, and popularity, of the gastric bypass.

Advances in surgery, not least the introduction of laparoscopic procedures, have made the gastric bypass a far simpler and more acceptable solution to the problem of obesity. In addition, the profile of the gastric bypass has been raised considerably in recent years helped along in no small way by the number of celebrities opting for this method of weight loss.

The list of famous people following this route is long and includes the rock singer Randy Jackson, the actress, writer, comedien and talk show host Roseanne Barr, the musician and harmonica virtuoso John Popper and the coach of the Notre Dame football team Charlie Weiss to name just a few.

But why is obesity on the increase and is it really a problem of our own making?

Although there was a small rise in the rate of obesity after the Second World War, the past twenty five years have seen a major growth in obesity, especially in the United States. The exact reason for this is a mystery and there is quite wide disagreement over the cause, but here are just a few reasons over which there is general agreement.

1. Marketing is now highly sophisticated, if not subliminal, and this is especially true in the world of fast and convenience foods. Additionally, a wide variety of restrictions were removed on advertising made for children during the 1980s and many of these restrictions dealt with such things as convenience foods and sweets.

2. We are increasingly becoming a nation of two income households which means that people are doing far less cooking at home. The number of people choosing home delivered meals, opting for fast food take out or frequenting their local restaurant has grown dramatically in recent years.

3. The past twenty five years have seen big changes in working practices with significantly fewer people now employed on manual work and with an increasing number of us sitting back and letting robots do the work that we once did or are sitting all day at a computer or behind a desk.

4. As a society we are far less active preferring to watch our favorite sport as opposed to getting out and playing the game ourselves and this is especially true for people who are overweight. Perhaps more interestingly, if you decrease the calorie intake for people who are overweight they do not become more active and if you raise the calorie intake for lean people they do not become less active. Weight loss, or gain, does not affect a person’s level of activity, but that person’s level of activity does affect her weight.

5. Despite the present discussion over oil prices, the motor car is no longer thought of as a luxury and the two car family has become the norm. We don’t think twice today about jumping into the car for even the shortest of journeys and many people wouldn’t even contemplate walking down to the shop at the end of the street.

6. perhaps strangest of all is the effect that the craze for exercise and diet has had on the rise in obesity. As a society we have become obsessed with dieting and many people diet as often as they change their underwear. Unfortunately it’s the case that virtually all diets fail and, at the end of a diet, it is not uncommon for your weight to rise to a level even higher than it was before the diet. This pattern of falling and rising weight over time ordinarily results in a gradual increase in weight towards obesity.

Each of the factors noted here not only add to the rise in obesity but is also manifestly made-made.

Certainly gastric bypass provides one solution. Nonetheless, even though the procedure is a lot simpler than it used to be and is gaining in popularity, it is still far from a pleasant experience and is not without its risks.

For those people who are obese today gastric bypass presents an excellent solution to their problem. For our children and grandchildren however perhaps the answer is to be found in preventing obesity rather than sitting back and waiting for the problem to present itself before turning to gastric bypass surgery.

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