No doubt about it, America is fat. Obesity in this country has become an epidemic of dangerous proportions that no one is immune to. With obesity has come the rise in weight-loss products, services and of course, operations. According to a recent New York Times article doctors perform around 220,000 operations a year “a sevenfold leap in a decade, according to industry figures — costing more than $6 billion a year.” Big Americans has become big business. However adults aren’t the only ones who are obese.

More and more children are becoming obese at almost the same rate as adults. Up to one out of every five children in the U. S. is overweight or obese and these children often become overweight teens and adults, which puts them at risk for heart disease, diabetes and more. Because of this doctors have started to rethink their position on allowing children to have weight-loss surgeries.

Allergan, the maker of the popular Lap-Band, is seeking permission from the Food and Drug Administration to market to patients as young as 14, four years younger than is now allowed. And hospitals across the country have already begun opening bariatric centers for adolescents in recent years.

The problem is allowing children to have weight-loss surgery is simply providing a quick fix to a problem that cannot be solved so easily.  Obesity can only be combated by teaching healthy eating habits, educating adults on nutrition so they can teach it to children at home, providing urban communities with healthier eating options, etc. Just telling a child you’re fat now go have this surgery doesn’t teach them, or the adults who hear and do the same, how to avoid what made them obese in the first place.

Children are still young enough to work off the weight properly; unlike some of their adult counterparts, no need to rush them into potentially life threatening surgeries simply because they are too young to know realize that working out and eating right is actually the better option.

Would You Allow Your Child To Have Weight-loss Surgery?

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