Paris : Thanks for sharing. I personally don't think you should be any more ashamed than for example a person with diabetes or anorexia. It's nothing you choose for yourself and if you could choose to do away with it, I am sure you would.

Dodger : I don't think they have a choice, it's been taken away from them by the operation. It's my understanding that if they eat any of the wrong things, or even a little too much of the right things, they get violently sick. Because they can eat so little at a time, they are also forced to focus on nutrient dense food, which means no empty calories. Sugar makes them sick, so that's out as well.

Basically they are forced to do lowcarb, and are made incapable of eating junk food. Cheating will have immediate and nasty consequences.

Also, I think, the digestive system is butchered so that you can't absord as many nutrients as before. And I also read somewhere that they is an appetite suppressant effect from the bypass.

I think that it's a strong statement of the stigma attached to being obese in this society that people are willing not only to accept all the nasty consequences of this operation but embrace it. If a bypass was to treat any condition other than obesity, the side effects would be considered unacceptable.

Teens are the LAST people who should make a decision like this. At that age, being accepted and popular is more important to them than anything else. A bypass is a devil's bargain. They don't really understand the life-time consequences of that decision. It's when it comes time to pay up that it becomes real.