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Teenager opts for surgery to battle weight

A 17-year-old girl tells TODAY why she decided to have surgery as the solution to her lifelong battle with obesity. It's not for all teens, medical experts warn, but for some the rewards outweigh the health risks of remaining obese.
/ Source: TODAY contributor

When she was in the third grade, Amanda Baron bent the scales at 200 pounds, and in the next eight years she did everything she could to lose weight – personal trainers, fat camps, diets. Finally, at the age of just 17 and with her weight pushing 250 pounds, she underwent bariatric surgery to reduce the effective size of her stomach.

She’s lost 60 pounds in the five months since the surgery, and on Thursday, the vibrant young woman told TODAY’s Natalie Morales what a difference it has made in her life.

“I feel amazing. I feel like I’ve been given the gift of life all over again,” she said. “I see things so much better. I’m able to do so much more. Before my surgery, my knees were hurting me. I couldn’t participate in school activities. I missed my junior prom.”

With an estimated 15 percent of the nation’s children ages 6-19 classified as obese, an increasing number are turning to the radical solution of surgery to lose weight. To highlight the trend, People Magazine followed Baron through her surgery, recovery and subsequent weight loss and reports on her story in the current issue.

Surgery is a last resort, but medical experts believe that for selected teenagers, the rewards outweigh the risks.

“It works,” said Dr. Nancy Snyderman, TODAY’s chief medical editor.”We’re at a tilting point in this country, where obesity is going to start costing us longevity. And there are classic examples, and this is one of them, where you have a mentally sound young woman who is obese, is at risk for heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and all the stuff that comes with it.”

Baron was already at risk for some of those health issues. Depressed by her repeated failures to lose weight and by the taunts and abuse heaped on her by her peers in school, everything in her life seemed to be coming apart.

“The year before my surgery, I put on 25 pounds in one year,” she said. “I developed high blood pressure, high cholesterol.”

Not for all teens
Her mother found a program that offered bariatric surgery for teens at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital at New York Presbyterian. Before being accepted, she had to go through a lengthy evaluation process.

“What’s essential is anybody who has this surgery has been screened very carefully, particularly adolescents,” said her surgeon, Dr Jeffrey L. Zitsman. “The first thing we have to make sure is that this is coming from the adolescent himself or herself and not their parents. We’ve had kids who come in whom the parents have been pushing, and the kids don’t want to have anything done. It’s clear that’s not going to be a recipe for success.”

There are two main types of surgery to restrict the intake of food and calories. A gastric bypass is more radical and involves resectioning both the stomach and intestines and sewing everything back together. By shortening the digestive tract, the surgery prevents the body from absorbing all the nutrients in food eaten. Patients who have the surgery have to take nutritional supplements the rest of their lives. They also face more potential complications after surgery.

Snyderman and Zitsman said that the preferred surgery for adolescents and teens is the bariatric procedure that is also called “lap band” surgery. Instead of rerouting the digestive tract, the surgery involves putting a silicon band around the upper part of the stomach, constricting the part that can accept food. Baron had that type of surgery and now feels full after a small portion of food.

Once a size 20, she came to the TODAY Show in a pair of size 12 jeans and a stylish black top.

“My dream was to be able to wear designer jeans and a shirt without having to wear a jacket,” she said.

She is losing about 10 pounds a month and is working out and enjoying her life in ways she never could before.

“This is not a quick fix,” Snyderman warned, but with the right teen, it can work. Looking at Baron, Snyderman added, “This is a shining example of how to do it right.”