Weight reduction surgery is not advisable for all overweight people, but it does offer an option to those people who have not been able to maintain weight loss through dieting. Typically, those who qualify for weight reduction surgery must be at least 100 pounds over ideal body weight, have a documented attempt to lose weight by following a medically supervised diet for at least 6 months and undergo a comprehensive medical evaluation with the physicians at Nationwide Children's Hospital. Surgical patients must understand that following surgery it will be imperative to maintain an exercise program, limit food amounts and change the types of foods that are eaten. The amount of weight loss and the ability to keep it off depends on how well patients follow the diet and exercise program after surgery.

The Center for Healthy Weight and Nutrition also offers the open gastric bypass surgery in which the surgeon makes a single incision in the abdomen to access the stomach, the laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery in which much smaller incisions are made, and the less invasive LAP-BAND?® surgery in which a special band is placed around the top of the stomach during surgery to restrict the amount of food intake.

SOURCE Nationwide Children's Hospital