Surgery or not? Be AWARE!

Lately, I have been looking through the web and trying to search for ways to cure obesity. And I have came by a site which attracted me at first!

And here it is...

SLIMBAND!

When I clicked into this website, this is what I saw!

This is a program that helps people “cure” obesity by doing  laparoscopic surgery which is an abdominal surgery where they perform small incisions in your abdominals and insert mini cameras and other instruments inside your body. After the surgery is performed, your body will start to lose weight.

This website sounds promising, and I can’t say that this method does not work, but you have to be aware of many things they state. 

Let me show you some things to be aware of:

• One of the benefits of this program is, “No counting calories. No eliminating food groups. No more worries about ‘cheating'," and that is because we don't consume that much food. However, the food we consume may be highly caloric and calories is an important factor contributing to our body weight and to show that, CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) provided a chart stating how we can maintain our weight, gaining and losing weight. 
• They have emphasized continuously that after the surgery, we are able to eat any types of food whenever we want, and that this won’t affect us from gaining back the weight, but this doesn't mean that we don't have to follow the Canadian Food Guide, in fact, the Canadian Food Guide is for you to follow in order to maintain healthy!
• Under the FAQ page, it states that they have to perform a laparoscopic surgery on the client and what they did was only explaining what they will do during the surgery, no further explanation. However, in the website of SAGES, it listed out a lot MORE information regarding the risks and consequences about this surgery.
• On their website they state, "If you qualify for most elective surgeries, you are a candidate for laparoscopic surgery." The truth is, not EVERYONE qualifies for this program! The laparoscopic surgery is only for people that have a serious problem with obesity, but Slimband intends to promote this surgery to everyone that want to lose weight.
• They also showed statistics about how much weight you can lose in a 12 month period, but does that mean you are losing weight in a healthy style? Indeed, many people talked about their experiences about losing weight, but most of these examples seem unreasonable; the highest number of pounds lost had reached above 100lbs/year! This is too good to be true!

You can lose up to 72% of your body weight in a year!!!

Many of these examples sound unrealistic

Many websites, up to a point, lack credibility because they want to attract customers to earn money; you have to be careful in which ones you look at and read everything they post! Moreover, at teens health, they say, “Being healthy is really about being at a weight that is right for YOU!”

Overall, this website is very attracting and shows another method for you to consider in curing obesity, but just be really clear of what they are doing. If you do decide to join their program, remember to do a lot of background research and ask your doctor questions to double check the reliability! 

Reference List:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2011, Feburary 15). Healthy weight – it’s not a diet, it’s a lifestyle: Balancing calories. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/calories/index.html

Health Canada. (2011, March 07). Food and nutrition: Eating well with Canada’s food guide. Retrieved from http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/food-guide-aliment/index-eng.php

Slimband Inc. (2011). Slimband. Retrieved from www.slimband.com

Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons. (2011). Laparoscopic surgery for severe obesity. Retrieved from http://www.sages.org/publication/id/PI15/

Teens Health. (2011). Finding a healthy weight. Retrieved from http://teenshealth.org/teen/food_fitness/dieting/lose_weight_safely.html

What is Obesity?

Welcome to my Obesity blog! I am Shirley, a first year university student that is currently in a contemporary health issue class trying to learn about issues that are happening around us that may affect us. I believe understanding how different types of issues may affect us and knowing how to deal with them is important because we all want to live a healthy life.  I’m especially interested into understanding why maintaining a healthy weight affects our lives and how it blocks us from having a healthy life. I will be investigating issues around this area and hope to have a better understanding of the consequences of not having a balanced weight. 

The main issue of healthy weight I would like to focus on is about obesity, because right now, according to WHO, obesity is one of the main problems around the globe that is affecting us from achieving the goal of maintaining a healthy weight. So, my target audience is people who are obese and want to have more a an in depth understanding about it. To begin, I believe when I point out the word “obesity” people will think about the words “fat” and “skinny”. Also, many people interpret the issue of obese as simply people who consume too much food and don’t watch their weight, but that’s not what obesity only is. Obesity is having excess fat in our body that harms us in many ways. You can be obese from your genetics, having less physical activity, illness or simply living in a wrong lifestyle! And behind all these causes may lead to chronic diseases and cardiovascular disease associated with obesity. That is mainly why the rates of people being obese are increasing every year and all mortality and morbidity rates are spiking up!

And how can we know if we are obese?  Well, it’s definitely not just simply thinking that looking fat means obese, because your definition of fat can be very bias. To be precise, you need to know what your body mass index (BMI) is. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), if your BMI is greater or equal to 25, you’re just overweight; if it’s greater than or equal to 30, you’re obese. To reduce the problem of obesity, it’s best to limit your calorie intake, consider what food you should consume and have a regular basis of physical activity.

The main point of this blog is to inform people to try to avoid being obese, do regular exercise and really investigate on what you are consuming and if it’s healthy for you! Moreover, this blog will contain a lot of facts and my personal opinions about obesity and I hope you all will be interested with my posts!