First of all those are early results. The later results like at the 10 year point (Swedish Obesity Study for one) found that the AVERAGE weight kept off was 16 percent of the original weight. Many feel those type of results are not worth the induced illness of the digestive tract which WLS introduces.

Another result from the Swedish Obesity study was that of those who were diabetic at the time of surgery, at the 10 year point, only 35 percent of these were still “diabetes free”.

Secondly the “success” with WLS is hard to judge because I have observed that many of those who are able to keep their weight down after WLS are those who have become ill or have serious repercussions like reactive hypoglycemia etc.

I put forth that making one ill to keep them slim seems not a good idea – although there are times our society actually sanctions illness if it helps people to lose weight.

As one weight loss surgery surgeon stated “fat and healthy way beats slim and ill”.

Third, an interesting thing to note is that most older fat people know a bunch of folks who died from WLS. One lady who weighs over 500 lbs and is in her 50′s, told me that she’s outlived 48 of her fat friends who had WLS.

I think that people who choose WLS are choosing it because they feel cornered in a society which treats fat people like lepers were treated a few centuries ago, should be accepted and supported and loved. Because they are doing the best they have been told that they can do. They are courageous people willing to take risks to do what they have been told will “make things right”.

But on the same token, we can still question whether WLS is ever a good idea – it’s not in the class of other surgeries which may be necessary – and the jury is still very out on whether it has much of a raison d’etre (other than helping to fund a very affluent industry). JMO…

Amen to that. And in my latest post, I said a lot of what you’re saying here, spacedcowgirl. Great minds and all that. :)

I wanted to thank Rose, Currer Bell, Kate, and everyone else for solidifying what I think is a very compassionate position toward people who choose WLS, while clearly articulating why WLS can still not be considered a good, safe, or likely-to-succeed choice. I feel like I understand the issue quite a bit better now. It is really tempting even for FA people to want to believe that WLS is a good or positive choice in certain cases, since in those cases it is the only choice. It is just too heart-wrenching to accept that there is NO good option for someone who is sick and in pain, even if that is the cold, hard truth. I think the slippery slope from “WLS is your only choice and I can see why you decided to do it” to “I want your pain to end, therefore I want to believe that WLS will solve your mobility problems” to “It is a fact that WLS actually does solve mobility problems” is definitely there and dangerous and I appreciate the way that the differences between these positions have been clearly outlined here as part of these discussions.

In a similar vein, I also appreciate Rose pointing out that it is perhaps a tiny bit incorrect to say that Heidi only got WLS so she could earn the “right” to appropriate medical care (which is, as many have said, appalling). By her own words she got it largely because she could see no other way of regaining any measure of the health and mobility she had lost. I appreciate Rose pointing this out because it allowed the point to be reinforced that although Heidi was in a horrible position and practically speaking had no other choice, that still does not mean that WLS is demonstrably effective at improving health or mobility. Heidi could very well end up worse off than before, and that sucks.

Honestly, though, I’m human and I certainly hope that Heidi’s WLS somehow works for her and she becomes able to do everything she wants to do again, and goes on to live a happy, comfortable, mobile, healthy life. I am well aware that it is unlikely that she’ll have that good an outcome, but if it can possibly happen I want it to happen for her even though that might weaken my “position” as a WLS opponent (I have always said that fucking around with people’s digestive systems has to be far more dangerous than being fat, even long before I knew there was any such thing as FA). Heidi has suffered enough and I know nobody here would enjoy seeing her suffer more in the service of proving a point.

I would even go further and say that I would absolutely love it if WLS were somehow demonstrated safe and effective for improving people’s health and mobility in general, not just for Heidi (in the rare cases where the physical presence of their fat is degrading their quality of life and we’re not just using fat as shorthand for whatever is really wrong with them). Unfortunately, it is almost certainly NOT safe, effective, or permanent for this purpose (an educational message that FA is working really hard to put out there) and is probably actively harmful, and that to me is the problem, not the simple fact that someone who gets WLS may lose weight and losing weight is de facto bad. Not that it is up to me, of course, but I think Kate did the right thing in bringing Heidi’s guest post over in the first place because positions on WLS can too easily become overly theoretical and rigid and (apart from the obvious fact that Heidi is a human being and deserves compassion) I feel that not at least acknowledging how painful and wrenching these choices (or lack of choices, really) can be actually limits FA’s ability to function in the real world. If our only response is “Nope, never get WLS, next!” then we can get “out of practice” at seeing how painful the process is for the real human being involved.

I understand what you mean. Perhaps I should have said “informed choice.” What I was getting at is that I don’t believe anyone should feel as if it is their only option if they want to receive proper medical treatment, or even to live a full, happy life, but neither should they be vilified for deciding to have the surgery.
Btw, I agree that the fewer surgeries there are in the world, the better. We have turned plastic surgeons into rock stars, and it’s VERY dangerous.

To me, open internal disagreement (to use your words) and fighting are two TOTALLY different things. Disagreements are good. Debates are good. FIGHTING, on the other hand, is bad.

You can disagree and/or debate with someone without it escalating into fighting. That is what I was agreeing with when I agreed with fashionablenerd’s comment. Whether or not that’s what SHE meant I can’t say (‘cuz… you know… I’m not psychic or anything ;) ). But when I read those words, THAT’S what popped into MY head.

I absolutely agree that key points to ANY belief system should be debated upon and re-evaluated. But it IS possible to do that without it devolving into FIGHTING.

That’s where I’m coming from. And if anybody wants to disagree with me, that’s just fine. :D