While I am probably the last person on earth who has any desire to advertise lap band and gastric sleeve surgery for obesity, I do acknowledge the clinical benefits of these surgical procedures for those who are morbidly obese with multiple poorly controlled comorbidities. However, I have also witnessed few cases that have gone bad e.g. those who suffer from unresolving post-operative complications, bowel obstruction, dysphagia etc… after these procedures. I believe there’s a role for these elective procedures for a subset of individuals with multiple inadequately controlled co-morbidities, but I wouldn’t advertise these procedure for those with lower BMI to undergo this procedure for the sake of weight loss when good health can be obtained with dietary and lifestyle modifications. BMI is also a very old scale that shouldn’t be used to characterized a person’s overall health status. Any organization that attempts to lower the threshold for obesity is seeking monetary gain or advertising a new gimmick.
