Bariatric Surgery Argumentative Essay

It is very clear that across the world the commonness of obesity is increasing beyond expectation. In the U.S. now, about 32% of adults are considered obese and 5% of them are considered morbidly obese (Hawn, 2006). Obesity is even prevalent among children, adolescents specifically. This disease as well as the ongoing list of adverse health effects is a critical health threat in the US. Changes must be made and action must be taken in order to reverse this epidemic. If this is not made a priority, current trends will continue and obesity may even compete with cigarette smoking as the lead cause of preventable death (DHHS, 2001; Manson & Bassuk, 2003). With the expansion of obesity, there is a clear uprise in theories, arguments, medications, etc. to combat it. The most significant and life changing is bariatric surgery. The American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery quote that there was a total of 196,000 operations in 2015, increasing by 17,000 since 2013 (2016).
Once a patient and physician come to an agreement that bariatric surgery is a good choice for a patient, there are a number of options to decide from. The first option is gastric bypass surgery, which is known as the gold standard. To begin this procedure, a small …show more content…
The long list of complications includes type II diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, asthma, and poor overall health standing (Durand et al., 2007; Flegal et al., 2002; Mokdad et al., 2003). Obesity has also been linked to psychosocial consequences which can even occur during early childhood (Durand et al., 2007; Ogden et al., 2002; Rich et al., 2005; Whitlock et al., 2005). A strong predictor of a child’s risk for metabolic syndrome is exposure to maternal obesity. Durand et al., (2007) made note of a longitudinal group study (Whitaker, Wright, Pepe, Seidel, & Dietz, 1997), that proved this