About one in every 200 Americans who underwent surgery for obesity last year was a teenager, according to statistics from a study done in Oregon. This translates into roughly 1,000 teens that had either laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding or permanent gastric bypass surgery in order to lose weight last year.

Teens experience about half the complications from such surgeries that adults do; however, no one knows if the weight loss achieved through stomach stapling or bypass operations will be permanent. The Legacy Good Samaritan Obesity Institute in Portland, Ore., is tracking patients to determine the long-term results.

Dr. Reginald Washington, a Denver pediatric cardiologist, believes that such surgeries are not the solution. "I don't think this should ever become a common treatment for childhood obesity," he said. "We haven't developed an ideal program for a treatment for childhood obesity."

Dr. Philip Wu, a pediatrician with the Kaiser weight-management initiative, said that the surgeries do not "normalize" childhood obesity. "Kids are not little adults," he said. "We need to know what happens to them ten years down the line. If it's only going to get you one or two or three years, then you backslide - is it worth it?"

Labels: complications, gastric_bypass, obesity_surgery