Aussies ditch diets for fast-fix fat loss surgery
It’s long been pegged as the quick-fix weight loss alternative to diet and exercise — and now, Aussies as young as 14 are making gastric sleeve surgery more popular than ever. But are its much-promised results really worth going under the knife for?
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Australians as young as 14 are ditching diets and instead going under the surgeon’s knife to reduce their stomach size and hopefully lose weight permanently.
More than 20,000 Aussies — including nearly 5000 Victorians — had weight loss surgery last financial year, a massive 40 per cent increase on the 12 months before.
Most patients were female and in their 40s but adolescents and the elderly were also among those opting for operations.
Gastric sleeve surgery, designed to reduce the capacity of the average stomach from 1.5 litres to just a small cupful of food, accounted for nearly 84 per cent of weight loss operations.
Monash University’s 2018-2019 Bariatric Surgery Registry Report also reveals the heaviest man to have weight loss surgery last year was 378 kilos while the heaviest female was 271.5.
Epworth HealthCare bariatric surgeon Dr Ian Michell said he performed about 100 weight loss operations in Melbourne a year.
Some of the most life-changing surgeries he had performed were on young people aged 18 to 25, whose obesity had caused them to become socially isolated and depressed, according to Dr Mitchell.
“I’ve seen amazing transformations in that age group,” he said.
There was also “a place for surgery in adolescents”, if they had reached adult height, he said.
“Almost always, I see people who have been struggling with their weight for years and coming to see me is not the first thing they’ve done. They’ve tried diet after diet … and they’ve reached the end of the road with those things,” Dr Michell said.
While older people often feared health problems as a result of their excess weight — including potentially deadly diabetes — their younger counterparts typically just wanted to be able to go out and do the sorts of things their friends were doing, he said.
That was certainly the case for Melbourne’s Lauren Root.
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The 25 year-old nursing graduate weighed 94 kilos before having gastric sleeve surgery in April last year, but is now just 59 kilos.
“I feel like a new person … and I want to show off my new self to everyone,” she said. “I’m no longer hiding in the house because I feel huge and yuck. Now I’m going out and even shopping is enjoyable!”
Ms Root said she was inspired by her father’s successful weight loss surgery.
“I’ve always been big but from 21 I was just getting bigger and bigger. I tried sport — at one stage four days a week — and I tried eating healthily but I was just eating too much, which is what I needed help with,” she said.
The report reveals there have been a small number of deaths linked to weight loss surgery over recent years.
It also shows the youngest person to have it last year was 14 and the oldest 97, and both were in private hospitals.
In public hospitals the youngest patient was nearly 19 years old and the oldest 72.