Obese patients face surgery ban

[announced]

I agree, but BMI is kind of unreliable or whatever. In the last 6 months I dropped from around 235 to 209 (Mostly a new job not allowing me to booze it up as much +trying to cut out sodas unless they are coming with a meal/or I am I am boozing it up). I don't think I'll ever reach the "healthy BMI" for my height. I am 6' 0'' but I am kind of muscular/my shoulders/wingspan are like a California condor ( I am actually big boned). I am at the top range for overweight for my height, and my goal is to be at the border between overweight/normal. But I don't think I could be at a healthy 160 lbs (middle of "healthy BMI"), I would be skin and bones I can already see some abs coming in big time.

TLDR: Good, but BMI is a bad standard.

u sound kinda like Cartman. "i'm not fat i'm just big boned"

no offense.

overall i think its a fine thing to ban obese patients unless they are motivated to lose some weight.

[truckboattruck]

BMI is such a stupid measure.
Because a lot of Rugby players & NFL Players are well over their BMI and Fit..

Other than that , maybe Fat Camps..
People could attend Fat Camps until they are a good weight.
Strict menus, exercise and workshop activities could be involved at fat camps.

Or Money incentives for people to loose so much weight by a certain time..

Better labeling of Food.. A lot of so called "Low Fat " foods contain lots of sugar & sodium..

fat logic ^
all its saying is that they are so fat that they must show a willingness to improve before getting fatty fat fat surgeries

[Deleted]

u sound kinda like Cartman. "i'm not fat i'm just big boned"

no offense.

overall i think its a fine thing to ban obese patients unless they are motivated to lose some weight.

Seeing as bone only make up ~15% bodyweight it sure does sound like it. It's almost like people think their bones are made of stone or steel

And i agree with obese patients should face a surgery ban.

[Vash The Stampede]

I like Japans approach to overweight people. Specifically because they actually do things to help you lose weight. No surgeries isn't exactly helping.

[Ripster42]

what part of eating disorders and other factors dont you understand?

i had a girl in my class who would eat a ton of food and barely gain any weight.
there are also people out there that barely eat and still gain a lot of weight.

Which matters why? BTW, those two things, they're not eating disorders.

Lets not forget that it's also a lot harder to operate on fat people and they take much longer to recover from surgery.

Things/words you don't understand, as evidenced by this post: mathematics, tools, fit, fool, average, likely.

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In order: yes, it's a real word, yes you are, you're disgusting, you don't have the first clue about self-control and how it relates to weight and fitness. <-- None of that was opinion.

You really need to stop reading people's blogs.

[Stormspark]

BMI is such a stupid measure.
Because a lot of Rugby players & NFL Players are well over their BMI and Fit..

Other than that , maybe Fat Camps..
People could attend Fat Camps until they are a good weight.
Strict menus, exercise and workshop activities could be involved at fat camps.

Or Money incentives for people to loose so much weight by a certain time..

Better labeling of Food.. A lot of so called "Low Fat " foods contain lots of sugar & sodium..

"Low fat" foods are snake oil. In fact, they are counter productive. I saw some "low fat" ice cream when I was shopping the other day. Decided to compare it to regular ice cream. It had a lot less fat. Do you know what they replaced that fat with? Sugar. Eating fat does NOT make you fat. People get fat because this "high carb/low fat/low protein" diet that the powers that be want everyone to buy into, is what causes weight gain. Excessive carbohydrates cause weight gain. You want to lose weight? Start eating high protein/high fat stuff, and limit carb intake. You can even go zero carb diets like Atkins, but that doesn't work out as well for most people, so it's better to just go low carb instead.

I'm not overweight, but I'm near the high end of the normal range. When I started cutting out carbs and only getting things like whole milk, regular ice cream, high protein stuff, etc, I lost some weight.

[Spectral]

Nah, you need to stop being a fat phobic sack of crap.

This is self-parodying at this point.

[Deleted]

a lot of elective surgery is already not covered, partially covered, or only covered with a doctors recommendation. i don't see how this is any different.

i'd prefer it to be otherwise, but i can see how not covering elective surgery is a financial requirement to keep the system working.

[Deleted]

What medical care do you suggest we deny people who judge people superficially? I never said they're a bad person because they're fat, I'm just saying it's their own fault. If you disagree would you care to explain?

If we start denying medical treatment to people because of their life choices no one will ever be treated for anything ever.

[Deleted]

If we start denying medical treatment to people because of their life choices no one will ever be treated for anything ever.

We don't hand out livers to alcoholics in general, same with new lungs for smokers. I don't see why fat people should be any exception as they are a big risk group.

[INVASMANIXOXOXO]

u sound kinda like Cartman. "i'm not fat i'm just big boned"

no offense.

overall i think its a fine thing to ban obese patients unless they are motivated to lose some weight.

?? I never said anything about bones lol. Take Doug Martin, he is 3 inches shorter than me (at least they inflate height numbers in the NFL) and 15 pounds heavier, but I don't think a person on this planet would classify him as fat (even though his BMI says hes pushing morbidly obese). That being said I am no Doug Martin of course, an I have been kind of fat in the past. I am at around 18-20% body fat, yet for me to reach "normal BMI" I would have to lose almost 25% of my body weight. Does that make it easier for you to understand why some of us are critical of BMI as the standard used to determine if people receive medical care? That being said I do agree with the point though people that are obese should have to lose the weight for a lot of this stuff.

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We don't hand out livers to alcoholics in general, same with new lungs for smokers. I don't see why fat people should be any exception as they are a big risk group.

I partially agree, but healthy lungs/livers are like gold, I think if we could just grow them in a lab there would be some smokers/drinkers receiving new organs.

[Deleted]

Good. #FatIsAChoice

[Sunseeker]

If you need a new hip or knee, it's probably going to be impossible to do enough cardio to lose weight. Diet alone won't eliminate 10% of your weight in a year.

[Blueobelisk]

If you need a new hip or knee, it's probably going to be impossible to do enough cardio to lose weight. Diet alone won't eliminate 10% of your weight in a year.

Yes it will. You don't need to do cardio to lose weight. If you can stand up and stretch a little, that's good enough.

[Sunseeker]

Yes it will. You don't need to do cardio to lose weight. If you can stand up and stretch a little, that's good enough.

No, actually it isn't. A hundred-pound person would need to lose 10 pounds, so a 300 pound person would need to lose 30 pounds. You don't lose 30 pounds by "standing up and doing some stretches", also you obviously have no idea how poorly the body functions when one knee doesn't work, or how much pain and physical dysfunction a damaged hip causes.

[TirielWoW]

That is the problem they create for themselves, it's not nice to say but it's literally their problem. Our actions have consequences.

Also, how is an alcoholic supposed to quit drinking if they die because they're banned from liver transplants? How do smokers quit if they die because they're banned from lung transplants? It's a risk/benefit analysis. They'll probably keep drinking/smoking so why bother wasting the time/money on the surgery. Same thing with the chronically obese, they'll probably just continue the same as they are. Liver/Lung transplant patients do have provisions that if they are clean/sober/stopped smoking for a period of time that they become eligable again...much like this where they require a patient to lose weight...show that they are committed to a healthier lifestyle.

I don't know that that's true, though. I have two friends - one from college, one from WoW - who both suffered from issues with their knees. The one I know from WoW was in a car accident when she was in high school, and it shattered both of her legs (her legs are basically held together with metal rods). Because of the damage done to her legs, it was extremely painful for her to walk on them for many years, and she gained weight. This led to damage to one of her knees (she was favoring the more damaged leg, this along with her weight gain damaged the other knee), making it even more difficult for her to get around. She was also diagnosed with PCOS, which made it nearly impossible for her to lose weight by dieting alone. She ended up getting bariatric surgery (the permanent one, not the lap band) and going on medication for the rest of her life (one of the medications helps fix her hormone levels so that dieting and exercise works properly for her) because she couldn't move around enough to lose the weight. Her knee is still messed up, but she's in a much better health situation. Of course, the PCOS is still an issue, because it affects more than just her weight, but she's able to be active and exercise and stuff.

My other friend has always been a "big girl," but injured her knee while hiking (yep, fat chick hiking all over the place, but somehow still fat). Her primary care doctor at the time basically told her, "Oh, it's because you're fat" and wouldn't treat it...which left her unable to move around (and thus she got bigger). After a lot of soul searching, she decided to have bariatric surgery because she didn't want her knee to get worse, and she wanted to remain active (I believe her statement was that she would probably die if she couldn't get out and hike again). Her surgeon actually discouraged her from weight training because "we're trying to take the weight off, not add more," but her nutritionist and new primary care doctor both disagreed and encouraged her to weight train because muscle weight is so much better than fat. She's doing really well now, despite having an extremely restricted diet (her surgeon flipped out when she asked to add some fruit back into her liquid diet lol), and her knee is a lot better (didn't require knee surgery, she just needed to get the weight off).

I don't think either of these women were "unmotivated" to lose weight. I think a combination of shit luck (with the car accident + PCOS) and physicians unable or unwilling to look past the surface (why would you tell someone to lose more weight, then refuse to help them do so?) caused them a lot of problems, but they were never unwilling to lose weight. They just failed at the ways everyone says will work, and required a little help on the part of physicians.

With that said, I understand refusing a knee or hip replacement if it would cause more harm than good, and I know that at a certain weight, it would do just that - artificial knees and hips are much more delicate than the real thing. But just telling people, "Nah, lose some weight, then we'll talk" seems silly. And exceptions should be made for those absolutely willing to lose the weight, who just need help. Dieting alone does not work for everyone.

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Actually you can quite easily. You just have to cut more calories than if you were being more physically active. Hell, I lost 10 lbs with 0 exercise and a simple change in diet. I was 220 at the time and that took me a month. Added exercise and another 10 lbs was gone the next month. Bam, 10%.

Cutting calories directly doesn't work for everyone. Also, iirc, you're male, right? Men lose weight differently from women (they plateau at different spots, women tend to lose weight much more slowly, etc), in case you were unaware. But for most people, physical activity must be paired with caloric changes simply because most obese people's metabolism is running very slowly.

[Crissi]

heh, think my body got used to operating at 1200-1300 calories. Been the same weight forever, so Im at the point of needing to introduce exercise. I cant really eat below 1200 because every doctor ever told me that 1200 is the bare minimum I should eat anyways...

Is that a thing? where your body adjusts to a certain calorie intake after losing X amount of pounds?

[TirielWoW]

heh, think my body got used to operating at 1200-1300 calories. Been the same weight forever, so Im at the point of needing to introduce exercise. I cant really eat below 1200 because every doctor ever told me that 1200 is the bare minimum I should eat anyways...

Is that a thing? where your body adjusts to a certain calorie intake after losing X amount of pounds?

Yep, it is. If you lose the weight too rapidly, your metabolism can actually reset at a lower level, trying to hold onto those extra pounds. I suspect that, at least in the case of women, this is evolution working against us. Cause babies.

[Crissi]

Yep, it is. If you lose the weight too rapidly, your metabolism can actually reset at a lower level, trying to hold onto those extra pounds. I suspect that, at least in the case of women, this is evolution working against us. Cause babies.

Halp! im being oppressed by female biology!

but yeah. Always thought "just eat less". Well...after hitting a certain point myself in eating less I just cant drop it neaaaarly as fast just from eating less. SO...I sympathize.

So exercise at some point is necessary. However, this isnt really easily done by people with joint issues, which is where my issue with this ruling comes in... I suppose it depends on how much weight is demanded to be lost and if the people involved just start eating less or have been forwhile and now their body got used to it.

[Traveler Voltin]

Which matters why? BTW, those two things, they're not eating disorders.

Lets not forget that it's also a lot harder to operate on fat people and they take much longer to recover from surgery.

what part of "and other factors" didnt you understand?