Janet asked:


What is the recommended protein requirement. I had gastric bypass 6 months ago and want to ensure I am getting enough protein.

Like adults, children are now joining the obesity trend. Today, about 15% of children are obese and about 30% are either overweight or obese. The trend is so alarming that we call it an obesity epidemic. There are many causes, but this article will focus on the most prevalent which are (1) parental obesity, (2) soda consumption, (3) sedentary lifestyle, (4) eating out, (5) sugar and (6) food marketing.

Parental Obesity

Children do what their parents do. They try to mimic their parents because they idolize them. Children do not think critically about what their parents do. They just love them and want to be like them. With food, it is no different. Children do what their parents do. Statistics on this trend are very clear. Parents that are obese are 70-80% more likely to raise obese children. Children of two lean parents have about a 10% chance of becoming obese.

You can see clearly that obesity among parents is passed onto offspring. Why? We can say it is genetics and just accept it, but the truth of the matter is that Americans have not been historically obese. Ninety eight percent of people can stay lean, but it is true that it is harder for some than others. The main problem is that children learn habits from their parents. They learn to watch television, eat at fast food restaurants, buy candy, and drink soda. These are all deadly habits to be avoided.

Soda Consumption

Dr. David Ludwig, obesity researcher, showed that people that drink soda have a 60% higher chance of becoming obese. Soda is the main source of calories in many peoples diets. Many children drink hundreds of calories per day.

Besides the calories, soda raises blood sugar levels. Insulin then takes the sugar and stores it into fat. Children are taking several hundred calories that get are mostly getting put directly into fat cells.

Blood sugar must be maintained to support life. When blood sugar is spiked the body has a hard time recovering. A spike is followed by a dip. The dip is often too low and the body must induce hunger to get the blood sugar back up.

The child will then gain weight by the soda calories and also because their hunger will be increased to maintain blood sugar levels. In addition, the calories are hard to burn off because they get put immediately into fat cells.

Sedentary Lifestyle

Did your grandparents sit around playing Wii and Xbox? Did your grandparents have 3 televisions in the house and cable television?

Children watch about four hours of television per day. Many kids get home from school and primarily watch television of play games. Why do they do it? It may have something to do with the example of mom and dad. Do mom and dad watch television all night or go running and play soccer?

The news has everybody scared to death. Children that live two blocks from their school are getting rides to and from. They aren’t allowed to go out without adult supervision. They can’t walk or run or do much of anything with these restrictions. Parents are really scared to let their kids go out and do anything. This makes them sedentary. This cultural part of society is different than it once was. It is likely your grandparents got out and did a lot of things in their youth. The problem is that the news reports so many bad things that everyone feels afraid. Crime studies have shown that it isn’t less safe than it was 50 years ago. Of course, it also matters a great deal where you live.

Eating Out

Parents eat out a lot these days. That means that the kids are eating out as well. Almost every kid in America wants to eat a happy meal. The deep fried nuggets, deep fried potatoes, and sugary drinks are not the best choice to slim the waistline. In a lot of restaurants, the choices for children aren’t that good. The other problem is that once your kid tries some deep fried nuggets, they may always ask for the fries and nuggets again. As a parent, can you say no? Many parents “can’t” say no even when their kid is ballooning out.

The leanest people simply do not eat out. On average, you will consume over 200 extra calories when eating out. The other factor is that people tend to get foods higher in sugar and fat. The reason is that restaurants are focused on tasting great. Healthy diets often takes a second place to flavor.

Nice sit down restaurants can often have healthy foods. Some buffets offer lots of salad, fruit, and vegetable choices. The problem is that they are more expensive to go to. What happens is that a lot of people go to fast food to save money and that is where they get deep fried this and sugary that.

Sugar

Have you met a child that didn’t love candy? My kids have a Halloween bucket brimming with all kinds of sugary concoctions. There is so much candy in my house I have thought of selling it on Ebay. My kids put candy on their list of things to get from Santa Claus. They ask to eat it almost every day. I don’t want to be mean and so they end up eating some.

If candy is in the house, children will beg for it. Like a dog that smells roast beef, they will keep watching for an opportunity for a morsel of two. That is why the best strategy is to keep the candy out of the house. If you eliminate it from the home, then the begging and crying go away. If you have too much candy you might consider throwing it away or donating it to a cause.

Sugar is probably the top reason for obesity. It is carefully put into about everything we eat. It spikes the blood sugar and induces overeating. For children to be lean, sugar consumption must totally be under control. That means less than 50 calories per day of sugar and preferably none. If you are getting over a hundred calories of sugar a day you are getting into the sugar glutton category and should cut back. Foods with sugar added should also be avoided completely.

Food Marketing

Ads on television, for children, are about 50% junk food ads. After the children watch the ads, they consume about double the calories than if they never saw the ads. In addition, they are much more likely to pick junk food over healthy foods. Food marketing definitely works well on children.

In one study, children were given a food that was labeled as from Mcdonalds and the exact same food was labeled as not from Mcdonalds. The children rated the Mcdonalds food as tasting better even though the food groups had the exact same food. This shows the powerful effects of brand advertising even on young children. They recognize brands of junk foods they want to consume at young ages.

How much better it would be if food marketing encouraged children to only eat healthy foods in moderate amounts? Obesity rates would come down.

Final Thought

If you can only do one thing, avoid sugar like the plague. If you can do more, avoid sugar and exercise at least 30 minutes per day (60 minutes if you are overweight).

Lawmakers, analysts, government, and corporations need to work together to solve this problem. We should not stand idly by as some large food corporations make our children fat.

By: Jamie Rackenthaler

About the Author:

Women Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything
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Bianca asked:


Everyone is always talking about how child obesity is a big problem. Probably some parents are saying to them ” Oh, don’t eat that! ” or ” You need to eat more healthier” or maybe something similar. What are your opinions on it? ” Silly or ” Important?

redkickinchicken asked:


Is there any way to have only an epidural during lap band or do you have to be under general anestesia? Any other comments about getting the surgery done is appreciated.

At a time when obesity is growing at an alarming rate, an increasing number of people are turning to gastric bypass surgery to solve their weight problem. But just how successful is gastric bypass surgery in terms of weight loss and can it really make a dramatic change to your life?

Gastric bypass has been around for more than fifty years now and, while there are of course risks as there are with any surgical procedure, in the vast majority of cases patients are more than satisfied with the results and enjoy a dramatically improved standard of living. But there is a price to pay.

Following a gastric bypass patients will need to adjust to a very different lifestyle and this can be hard unless adequate preparation is made in advance of surgery to ease patients gently into a post-operative regime.

Some changes are of course obvious. The basic principle behind gastric bypass surgery is to drastically reduce the size of the stomach and physically restrict the amount of food that the patient can eat and so patients clearly understand that the days of sitting down to a big meal are over. But other consequences of surgery are less obvious.

Even in small quantities the days of eating foods that are high in sugar or fat are also over. The consequences of eating such foods can be extremely unpleasant as the rapid absorption of these foods in the now shortened digestive tract can lead to very unpleasant feelings of faintness.

Patients also find that the dramatic change in their eating pattern also leaves them very short of water and they must adjust to constantly drinking small amounts of water throughout the day to avoid dehydration.

This fairly dramatic change in lifestyle is all well and good but just what can gastric bypass achieve in terms of weight loss?

There is of course no simple answer to this question as results will vary from person to person. As a guide however we need to start by understanding just how post-operative weight loss is measured.

The starting point is to assess just how much excess weight the patient is carrying. This is done by working out the patient’s ideal weight. Measured in pounds, for a man this will be 106 plus 6 times his height in inches less 60. If that sounds complicated then here’s an example. For a man 5ft 10ins tall his height in inches is 70. Deduct 60 from this and multiply the result of 10 by 6 to give you 60. Finally, add 106 and 60 together and the ideal weight for a man of 5ft 10ins is 166 pounds.

For a woman the principle is the same but this time a women’s ideal weight is 100 plus 5 times her height in inches less 60.

Taking the example of our man above, if before surgery he weighs 366 pounds then his excess weight is 200 pounds. Weight loss is then measured in terms of the percentage of excess weight lost over time. So, if after 6 months he has lost 100 pounds then his weight loss will be 50 percent. In other words, at that point he will have lost 50 percent of his excess weight.

As a general guide the average patient can expect to lose about 50 percent of their excess weight within 6 months of surgery rising to 70 percent one year after surgery and to 80 percent after 2 years. For the majority of patients weight loss will not continue beyond 2 years and indeed some long-term weight gain will appear after 2 years, typically about 10 to 15 percent of the patient’s excess weight.

Again, as a general rule, patients who are excessively overweight will lose a greater percentage of the excess weight (perhaps as much as 90 or 95 percent) while people who are less overweight may lose at little as 60 percent within 2 years of surgery.

It is interesting to note that patients very rarely lose 100 percent of their excess weight and thus do not achieve their ideal weight as a result of surgery. For this reason, it is sometimes said that gastric bypass cannot be said to be a complete success. The overwhelming majority of patients would not however agree with this statement.

While they may not reach their ideal weight and may have to condition themselves to a very different lifestyle following surgery, for most patients the results achieved and the improvement in their quality of life is simply unimaginable.

By: Donald Saunders

About the Author:

Weight Loss Surgery For Dummies
by Marina S. Kurian, Barbara Thompson, Brian K. Davidson
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Keli asked:


My sister had gastric bypass surgery and lost almost 80 pounds in 3 months. I want to do the same thing but without the surgery. I wonder if I could use her diet after her surgery to do the same thing?

Gastric bypass insurance is any insurance that covers the cost of gastric bypass surgery. Today, most insurance companies will cover the cost of gastric bypass surgery as long as it is deemed medically necessary for the health of the patient. However, it frequently happens that an initial application for gastric bypass insurance will be denied. When that happens, simply reapply for gastric bypass insurance coverage. Frequently, the application is approved on resubmission.

Gastric bypass insurance covers the cost of gastric bypass surgery. Gastric bypass surgery is a permanent method of weight loss wherein the patient?s stomach is reduced drastically in size. This causes the patient to fill full quickly after eating only small amounts of food. This, in turn, results in dramatic weight loss. Gastric bypass surgery is usually recommended only for patients that need to lose one-hundred or more pounds of excess weight.

If you have decided that gastric bypass surgery is a viable method of weight loss for you, you will want to make sure you have gastric bypass insurance. One of the ways to do this is to secure health insurance before planning and scheduling the operation. An excellent way to find good, comprehensive gastric bypass insurance is by searching the internet.

For example, at mostchoice.com you can fill in their on-line application form and receive rate quotes from over 140 insurance companies. In addition, Medicaid will provide gastric bypass insurance coverage if the patient?s weight is a contributing factor to life threatening diseases such as diabetes, sleep apnea, and/or high blood pressure. In the case of Medicaid, a primary care physician must make the referral to the gastric bypass surgeon. Also, the surgeon must be a registered Medicaid provider.

When selecting health insurance coverage make sure you read the insurance company?s fine print. Some health insurance companies list gastric bypass surgery as one of their non-covered procedures. If this is the case, you will want to select a different gastric bypass insurance company one that will cover the treatment and let you start a new life, one free from obesity.

By: Jeanette Pollock

About the Author:

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Lap band surgery is something that is giving many people a new lease on life. This procedure is allowing many people that suffer from obesity the ability to return to a healthy weight. However, many people want to know the price before they begin researching this weight loss option as a solution for their obesity problem.

While it is becoming increasingly more common for insurance companies to foot the bill for the surgery, there are many people who still do not have insurance, eliminating this as an option for them. Recently, Medicare has made the decision to pay for the gastric banding procedure. Many health care providers have come to the conclusion that the cost of this surgery is less than the cost many years of obesity related medical issues.

As time has passed, the price of the adjustable lap band has decreased. When it first started being performed in this country (it was approved by the FDA in 2001), it was priced at about $15,000. Gastric banding was available in Mexico for about $10,000 at that time. The idea of having this surgery performed in Mexico may bring on apprehension, but it has been performed in Mexico for many years and these doctors have performed hundreds of these minor operations.

With that being said, there are new bariatric surgery clinics opening regularly in this country making the price more competitive. In the past few years, the cost of lap band surgery is running between $10,000 and $15,000. But in just the past month, I have seen clinics offering this operation for less than $10,000. Now this may still seem like a lot of money, but many of the bariatric clinics now offer financing.

If you are obese and feel this procedure would be a good weight loss option for you, the cost of is not the obstacle it used to be. Talking to your physician is a good place to start if you considering weight loss surgery. This procedure can restore your health, but there is a lot to consider before having this minor operation.

This procedure is the least invasive of all the types of gastric bypass surgery, requiring only an overnight hospital stay. In most cases you will be back on your feet and back to work within a week. The cost has made this procedure much more attractive to many people looking to lose more than 100 pounds.

By: Arlene Schneider

About the Author:

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In a gastric bypass the connection between he stomach pouch and the small intestine is called the gastrojejunal anastomosis. It is roughly the diameter of a ladies little finger. This small opening slows food from leaving the stomach too quickly prolonging the satiated feeling. In extremely rare cases scar tissue may form at this connection resulting in a blocked outlet. Treatment to correct this is the insertion, endoscopically, of a special balloon. The balloon is inflated and expands the anastomosis returning it to the correct size.

If a patient has symptoms of blockage that is not the result of overfilling the stomach pouch they must seek the advice of their bariatric professional. The symptoms include chronic vomiting and food intolerance.

More commonly, a blockage of the anastomosis is caused by poorly chewed foods. Patients must be diligent in avoiding foods that may cause a blockage. This includes large pills, some types or too much bread, overcooked or chewy meats, starches and nuts. If a pill becomes lodged in the stomach outlet it will usually dissolve after a few hours. If food becomes impacted it will be painful to the patient. Food will eventually digest and dislodge itself in most cases. In extreme cases a patient may need to have an endoscopy to dislodge the offending food. Patients in the habit of chewing their food will rarely encounter a blockage or plugged outlet.

When patients do suffer a mild blockage they can find usually relief by taking a dose of Pepto-Bismol and returning to soft foods such as gelatin or broth for a day or two.

Copyright ? 2005 Kaye Bailey – All Rights Reserved.

By: Kaye Bailey

About the Author:

Weight Loss Surgery For Dummies
by Marina S. Kurian, Barbara Thompson, Brian K. Davidson
Amazon Price: $14.95
Customer Review: This book is wonderful. It answers all the questions you want answered and even some that you didn't know to ask. It is easy to understand and even great for family members who want to know what to expect after their loved one has surgery....

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by Diane Kress
Amazon Price: $16.50
Customer Review: To whome it may consurn i am very pleased with my book, it is in very good shape, plus the miracle works!
Thanks
Caroline :)

Weight Loss Surgery with the Adjustable Gastric Band: Everything You Need to ...
by Robert Sewell M.D. M.D., Linda Rohrbough
Amazon Price: $11.53
Customer Review: I ordered this book as I am scheduled for Lapband surgery at the end of the month. I took it with me on vacation and finished the book within a few days.I have already done alot of research and belong to several discussions boards but this book was v...

mark jackson asked:


I’m arguing how fast food advertisements increases childhood obesity.
What would be some solutions and counter arguments?
So far, I have that parents should be more attentive and exercise daily as solutions.
Thanks