Its interesting isnt it how few people are really benefitting from this surgery.
I have several really obese friends and they just are not interested in the LAP-BAND®. They dont WANT to change, they see the surgery as extreme and they're attached to their deadly habits, they simply do not want to change them. They can go on diets because they know they're not really going to succeed so there's no real risk to their lifestyle but when they face something that might actually work, they're scared of it. I felt like that myself, the thought of really letting go of bad habits was quite scary. Interestingly they can also be a little nasty about how "you werent really that fat to do something like that". Like I dont qualify because I dont know what it is like to be morbidly obese. I just wanted to avoid ever getting there is all.
But the band has only enhanced my life. OK, so I've been very lucky with mine, but it has not changed my lifestyle in any substantial way other than I dont eat as much when I eat. I still eat out like I did and I still enjoy it, I can eat any food, and even those that cause me problems, I just dont miss. If I had to live my life without bread, I could do so without a problem.
What's really changed for me though is exercise, I never knew what it could be like to really love it - but it took me 6 months of hard slog to build the fitness to get to that point. I wish I could get across to people just how much difference it makes.
But really, you cant help people unless they want to hear what you have to say, and that's why I think the band may not have taken off like Prof. O'Brien hoped it would. Many people, if not "fat and happy" are very comfortable in their ways, their habits and fatness serve a purpose and it cant all just be solved by physical measures - there's way more to obesity than that in many many cases. Sometimes surgeons I think fail to understand this if they've never been obese themselves - I think Prof. O'Brien is a little naive in this attitude.
private health insurance does help of course, I've often reflected on how, yet again, I get to enjoy better health than the next person because I have more money. It should be a commonly done public procedure as well.
__________________ Jacqui  |