Psychological Assessments Are The Key To Improving Gastric Bypass Success

By Author: Donald Saunders
Total Articles: 84
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For an increasing number of severely obese individuals gastric bypass surgery is the solution to shedding excess weight when diet and exercise have not been successful, although it is definitely not an easy course and leads to a wide range of outcomes in different patients.

There are a number of different surgical weight loss options available today from a full gastric bypass involving the decrease of the volume of the stomach and the bypassing of part of the intestine to both restrict the quantity of food eaten and the absorption of calories from that food to lap banding which merely reduces the volume of the stomach to once more restrict the quantity of food that can be eaten.

Whatever type of surgery is performed the basic principle is to force the body to burn off a greater number of calories than can be ingested and so reduce weight by using up the body's fat reserves.

The true problem with weight loss surgery however does not lie in the surgery itself but reveals itself in the months after the operation when people find that their lifestyle has to change radically and that they need to adjust to a ...
... totally new eating system. For most patients this is difficult but for some it can bring severe problems that are simply too much to cope with.

There are various different reasons for obesity but a couple of commonly seen problems demonstrate this point.

The first problem is that of those individuals whose obesity has resulted from, or been exacerbated by, emotional eating. In this case individuals turn to eating whenever they find themselves stressed or when their emotions are particularly low. Emotional or comfort eating can develop into an extremely strong habit that is difficult to break and the psychological pressures that often follow weight loss surgery are just the type of pressures that can trigger the desire for comfort eating in people who suffer from this difficulty.

The second problem is that of those individuals who are prone to binge-eating and the uncontrollable disgust, guilt and depression that usually follow binge-eating episodes. It is only too easy to picture the extreme difficulty which such individuals will experience in trying to cope with the significant changes in lifestyle after gastric bypass surgery.

When all of these factors are taken into account it is perhaps not surprising to discover that approximately 20% of people being considered for obesity surgery are unsuitable, or more accurately not prepared, for surgery which is when psychological obesity treatments come into their own.

A lot of attention is given to the requirement for people to meet the physical requirements for surgery (in terms of such things as their body mass index and the presence of other medical problems associated with their being severely overweight) but all too often little attention is given to very real psychological problems that are associated with surgery. If surgery is to be given the very best possible chance for success then it is critically important to pay close attention to the psychological needs of people and to provide them with pre-operative assessment, counseling and, most especially, treatment.