That’d be the laparoscopic adjustable gastric band, known by several brand names but commonly ‘lap band’, a weight loss surgery procedure whereby an adjustable band made of silicone is placed around the stomach to create a small pouch. The idea is that it’s a tool for portion control. The reality is that it’s a surgically-enforced eating disorder. Tiny portions, lots of chewing, vomiting, acid reflux, and bowel problems. ED or WLS? You decide!
There is currently a big push in Australia from the Australian Medical Association (AMA) and the various clinics that offer the procedure to have the costs covered by Medicare, Australia’s socialised (but pretty run-down) health system. At the moment, those wanting the procedure have to do it on their own dime, with or without private health insurance. [ETA: Apparently Medicare currently covers a tiny number of these surgeries - the waiting lists are years long.] The lap band pushers say, however, that by keeping it off Medicare, the government is being mean to fat people, apparently. They’re forcing fat people to spend their lives in misery. It’s safe! It’s reversible! It’s shiny! You’ll be surrounded by ponies! Fat people will die real soon now if they don’t have the surgery! This is the only thing that can cure teh diabeetus! You’re discriminating against fat people by denying them surgery!
Yes, the surgery is safer, less destructive, and has fewer serious side effects than the various forms of gastric bypass. It may be reversible, as long as the band doesn’t adhere to your stomach. But so freaking what? The problem is not fat people. The problem is society. Fat people who live their lives in misery so not do so because of some inherent fault with their body. They live in misery because society tells them that they’re worthless gluttons, lazy pigs and worse than terrorists. They face stigma and social isolation because the general public really believes that most fat people could lose weight if they wanted. They face discrimination because the same doctors that sell weight loss surgeries blame all their medical problems on their weight. They face poor health because of these fucked-up situations, not because their fat makes them diseased. The person whose problems are directly caused by their adipose tissue is pretty damned rare indeed.
The doctors pushing for fat people to get on board with lap band surgery count on fat people believing that they are failures and doomed to a life of disease and disability or dying young. Their professional and financial investments depend on the fantasy of being thin thriving. They say the cost of giving everybody with a BMI over 35 this surgery will be less than the cost of people staying fat. This is under the current societal model where fat people are ill non-humans, however, and only studies that support this idea are allowed to be considered when making health policy. I reckon the cost of implementing a health at every size-based health policy would be a lot less, but then you’d have to have certain medical professionals admitting that their entire careers are based on lies and on the suffering of fat people.
And there’s one big conflict in the pro-WLS arguments I’ve seen published recently in Australian newspapers: certain doctors want everyone of a BMI over 35 or 40 (choose your preferred option) to have the surgery judging by their statement that this will cost less than all the fatties getting heartattackitis, but then they say it should be reserved for the really fat fatty-boombahs who just can’t stop eating because they have leptin problems or some other condition that makes them extremely fat. Which is a tiny percentage of fat people, mind you, even the ‘morbidly obese’ ones. And, uh, I’m unclear on how a silicone band fixes a serious hormonal problem. It may mask the problem by forcing the person to eat tiny amounts, but that’s still not fixing the problem, for fuck’s sake. It’s certainly not going to fix binge eating or compulsive overating disorder, seeing as how those are mental health problems, not simply a lack of willpower.
[ETA: As for performing this surgery on children, see Rio Iriri's continuing series on Kids & WLS, Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. I agree with her that it is inhumane to foist such restricted eating upon bodies that are still developing, no matter how fat, and no matter how safe or reversible the surgery.]
Fat people of Australia may face some…interesting…times ahead, seeing as how there’s this AMA push for anti-fat surgery, and the new Rudd government has declared that ‘obesity’ will be one of its main health focuses this year. There have been calls for anti-smoking or TAC (traffic accident)-style shocking ads to be put on TV showing the ‘horrors of obesity’, from doctors and medicos who are supposed to care for the health of fat people, no less. The new Minister for Health, Nicola Roxon, has so far seemed rather earnest in her efforts to be seen to be a Serious Cabinet Member, and being the person who will lead Australia out of the shame of being so fat (I’ve read some of her speeches on childhood obesity, good god) and into a gloriously golden future full of thin people.
Write to your local member, Senator, and the Minister expressing your concerns. The more people who do, the more notice they have to take. I hope.
