Weight Journey

Although France has a relatively low rate of morbid obesity, it is one of
most active countries with respect to using bariatric surgery. For recall, this is not a
benign procedure but invoves irreversibly making the stomah smaller, and in
the case of the bypass procedure, rewiring the smaller pouch lower in the intestinal
track. Not my idea of cosmetic fun. Interestingly, the YouTube video below does
give an idea on how this is approached.

Only two of the four patients go to surgery. the two teen-aged girls are sent to
boarding schools for  one year with other obese girls. The results are amazing: both
loose an appreciable amount of weight and do better academically. There is a psychologist
present but he doen't mess with the girls' heads. It is a limited form of interention whose
import is to disentangle compensatory eating in the day-to-day of these young women.

The two adults are not infantalized. It is a chance to live a normal life with their families,
and there is a cost to them. The operation itself lasts one hour (they are at 300 pounds,
not 600). Ten days in, they are served a regular portion of fish and spinach they free to eat
or leave; it is their journey.