Make the Mental Fat-Body Connection: Is Weight Loss Surgery an Option?
Posted: Mar 24 in Obesity and your Health by Staff
Obesity is at epidemic proportions in the USA. Busy lifestyles often lead people to opt for fast, convenient foods that wreak havoc on their waistlines and place stress on their bodily organs.
This, combined with sedentary lifestyles and lack of adequate exercise, results in high rates of obesity, even among children. Unchecked, poor eating habits and the inability to form a mental fat-body fat connection, eventually leads to obesity that is resistant to traditional weight loss programs and requires medical interventions such as medical weight loss or bariatric surgery.
What is the Mental Fat-Body Fat Connection?
Most people know they need to lose weight, and likely have ideas about what they should weigh, based on figures they – or their healthcare professionals – determine are goal weights to attain. The weight goal is the body fat side of the equation; mental fat represents the unhealthy, destructive patterns that the person engaged in to become obese. Unless the individual makes the connection about banishing the “mental fat,” the body fat will remain, or become worse.
Is Weight Loss Surgery an Option?
It is common knowledge by now to follow the “eat right, exercise, and avoid unhealthy habits” mantras for losing body fat and changing destructive habits that lead to obesity. What about those, however, who need drastic – perhaps even lifesaving – measures to lose weight they are unable to shed through normal means?
Various forms of weight loss surgery are often viable solutions for severely or morbidly obese people. Weight loss surgery works one of two ways:
- Restricting the stomach’s ability to retain more than a cup of food, causing the person to feel full faster and eat less;
- Diverting food from part of the intestine, resulting in the body absorbing less food and fewer calories.
As always, individuals considering weight loss surgery should consult with their healthcare professionals or specialists to ensure they are good candidates, and receive all the facts – pros and cons – before making a decision to undergo this major surgery, including understanding they will need to make lifestyle changes for optimal health.