When should I consider diet pills or weight loss surgery?
Being very overweight can lead to a slew of health problems including high blood pressure, diabetes, sleep apnea, arthritis, gastroesophageal reflux disease, and early death. Amazingly, a weight loss of just 10% is often enough to reverse some of these medical problems. If you have failed attempts at diet and exercise and have medical complications from being overweight, medications may be able to give you that 10% weight loss you need.
Surgery such as gastric bypass is very effective at causing weight loss but carries small but potentially life threatening complications and are therefore reserved for the obese who have medical complications and the “morbidly obese.”
The first step to figuring out if your weight puts you into those categories is to calculate your Body Mass Index (BMI). There are a number of BMI calculators on the web. The formula is:
BMI= Weight in kilograms/ (Height in meters)(Height in meters)
A BMI of 25-30 is considered overweight; 30-40 is obese; >40 is morbidly obese. The American Association of Bariatric Surgery guidelines for weight loss surgery recommend offering an operation to people with a BMI>35 and medical complications, or anyone with a BMI>40.
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