Many fat people go into surgery believing that their obesity will cause them an early death when sadly, the 'cure' is much worse than the obesity!.

All the surgery does is cause a big weight loss by forcing starvation.

Some experts say that weight-loss surgery creates more problems than it solves. Among the critics is Jennifer Mann, an eating disorder specialist in Los Angeles who has treated several clients who have had gastric bypass surgery.

According to Mann, gastric bypass surgery is a bad idea for most people. "This is a permanent prison, in a sense," she said. "You are choosing to make your stomach a different size. And while it is possible to go back, it is very rare and very risky. This is permanent."

Dr Mason, the surgeon who invented the gastric bypass in the 1960's (no it's not a new surgery as some would have us believe) was even more explicit about the dangers of bariatric surgery. He wrote in an article in 1999 that "For the vast majority of patients today, there is no operation that will control weight to a "normal" level without introducing risks and side effects that over a lifetime may raise questions about its use for surgical treatment of obesity."

Dr Edward Livingston, director of the University of California At Los Angeles Bariatric Surgery program wrote: "By doing this surgery, you're creating a medical disease in the body. Before you expose someone to that risk, you have to be absolutely sure that you are treating an illness which is equal to or greater than the one you are creating." Ref: p 175, Self Magazine, April 2001 "Would you have surgery to lose weight?"

The idea of having surgery, that "cripples" the digestive tract is supposed to be that the sickness (in this case, obesity) is worse than the cure (also a type of sickness). Much of this is based on the oft stated quote "Obesity kills 300,000 people a year". However, Robert Pool in his book, FAT - EXPLODING THE OBESITY EPIDEMIC (NY, 2001) wrote that this is a false quote. The results of the famous study stated that LACK OF EXERCISE (not obesity!) contributed to 300,000 deaths a year. Another study, one year later repeated those results but when the scientist reported it, he assumed that everyone who didn't exercise was obese so he STATED his results as "Obesity kills 300,000 people a year".

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