{"id":1600,"date":"2005-06-17T14:45:58","date_gmt":"2005-06-17T21:45:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/06\/05\/stories-of-weight-loss-surgery\/"},"modified":"2005-06-17T14:45:58","modified_gmt":"2005-06-17T21:45:58","slug":"stories-of-weight-loss-surgery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=1600","title":{"rendered":""When I see myself at 135 pounds, I see part of what Susie died for.""},"content":{"rendered":"

Via Big Fat Deal<\/a>, I read this interesting article in New York Magazine<\/em><\/a> about fat people who have (at least temporarily) turned into thin people through weight-loss surgery. Here’s a few select quotes:<\/p>\n

A 1991 study in The American Journal of Surgery also contains some interesting data about the mental-health effects of bariatric surgery. In the first six months, patients reported they were ecstatic. But after two years, most were back to where they started, at least in the aggregate. The crude explanation for this, says Walter Pories, one of the study’s authors and a surgeon at the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University, is that real life once again begins to reassert itself, and the trials of real life aren’t always things that skinniness can cure: bad jobs, neglectful spouses, rebellious children, faces and bodies that turn out only ho-hum. The more interesting mental-health discovery he and his colleagues made, Pories says, were the effects the surgery had on people’s marriages. “If the woman married when she was thin, had kids, became obese, and then had the surgery, the marriage almost always got a lot better,” he explains. (An estimated 75 percent of all bariatric patients are female.) “But if the woman married someone while she was obese and then became pretty . . . well, then she found a job. Got her colors done. Felt better about herself. And almost every one of those marriages ended in divorce.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A few months ago, the various pressures of Show’s new life began to catch up with her, and she began to see a therapist, Jude Milner, who’s had bariatric surgery, too. “The problems actually started maybe a year after my surgery, when I was cast in a show where I was an adagio dancer,” Show explains. “The guy had to lift the girls up. At that time, I was 157 pounds, and all I could think was, This guy is going to break his back.” She’s quiet for a second. “That’s when I started. The vomiting and purging. That’s when I realized how easy it was to develop that habit.” Within two weeks, she’d gotten her weight down to about 145 pounds.<\/p>\n

“I used to think that if I were thin, I’d be so much happier, and my life, from that moment on, would be perfect,” she says. “But it’s almost as if I’ve created other ways to be unhappy.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“The day she went for her consultation,” she continues, “the doctor said, ‘I want you to understand that you’re not going to come out of this looking like Gloria. I can’t promise you’re going to be a size 8.’ And that was fine. She was not doing this to get skinny. And yet . . . when I see myself at 135 pounds, I see part of what Susie died for. By no means all of it. But part.”<\/p>\n

Cahill’s crying now, discreetly but steadily. “It would be very easy for me to say, ‘This surgery killed my sister, and it’s the worst thing in the world,’ ” she says. “And her last moments of consciousness may have been imbued with terrible fear . . . “She looks away. “But also hope,” she resumes, looking directly at me. “This gave my sister hope, and nothing else did.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I swear, I’ve almost never seen a better argument for fat acceptance than this article. (The article-writer, by the way, never mentions or considers the idea that it’s possible to be fat and healthy.)<\/p>\n

Although the article does admit that gastric bypasses have high deathrates (some procedures as high as 1 in 100), it also implies that those who survive generally have long-term health improvements. Sandy Szwarc<\/a> points out that the evidence is actually less than compelling.<\/p>\n

For further criticisms of surgical weight loss, check out the Obesity Surgery Information Center<\/a>, especially their letters section<\/a>, for the kind of obesity surgery stories that will never get reported in the mainstream media. And also read this comment by Paul Ernsberger<\/a> (you’ll need to scroll down a bit for it)..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Via Big Fat Deal, I read this interesting article in New York Magazine about fat people who have (at least temporarily) turned into thin people through weight-loss surgery. Here’s a few select quotes: A 1991 study in The American Journal … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fat-fat-and-more-fat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1600\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}