Theres something really insidious about how gastric bypass advocates deny that essential organ mutilation is unhealthy.
"I've lost so much weight I'm so healthy" your stomach is mutilated.
"My doctor is praising my progress" your stomach is mutilated.
"I fit in so many more clothes now"
Because an essential, life sustaining organ in your body was cut up and your digestive system rerouted.
Health isn't the end all be all of value, humanity or importance but I feel like there is a huge lie here when this is "healthy" and it's just ignored.
Sorry to just bring this up out of no where but I was reminded of how little this is really talked about in bypass circles. Like, no matter what, you are now unhealthy. The spector of health continues. The Ouroboros is unbroken. Only this time it's doctor approved.
-mod squirrel
I would like to talk about this actually because I don’t think enough people realize how serious these sorts of “procedures” actually are. Because yes, one horrible mutilation to your digestive in the name of being skinny isn’t bad enough, there’s multiple iterations of this distressing Sawbones trend.
This is the lap band. Often touted as being the safest because the band can be removed or at least opened up to allow more food through. What does it do specifically? Makes it so that you can only eat as much as will fit in that teeny tiny little pouch. The issue is that the stomach itself as a full functioning organ is designed to stretch to hold food. The artificially made pouch is not. Eat a bit too much on a normal stomach and you typically just feel bloated and full and need to lie down for a while. Eat a little too much with a lap band, and you can cause the esophagus to stretch out too much and stop contracting. This can lead to severe acid reflux and loss of the ability to swallow properly. In an extreme case this could instead rupture the esophagus and/or stomach which is a medical emergency for obvious reasons. The band can also slip out of place and construct the larger part of the stomach, causing severe pain and discomfort. This is the only one of these procedures that is reversible.
Gastric sleeve is another form. It amounts to removing 80% of the stomach, permanently limiting the amount of food you can eat at a time DRASTICALLY. It can also cause frequent or constant drops in blood sugar, hernias (the small intestine may enter the incision site, or the mutilated stomach may slip out of its place and interfere with other organs), severe acid reflux, malnutrition, and frequent vomiting. Incision site can also build up scar tissue that further obstructs the stomach and prevents eating normally.
Gastric bypasses are among the worst though, and there are multiple kinds because of course there are, so I’m just going to cover the most common in the US. The one in the OP is an RNY bypass. Basically cuts the top corner out of the stomach, sews it to the small intestine, and then also sews the remainder of the stomach to the small intestine so gastric acid and other digestive materials can still meet the food. To get an idea of how small the remaining part of the stomach is, it holds about 28g. A normal stomach in an adult human holds around 1200g. For reference, 28g is around the size of a domestic mouse and 1200g is around the size of a red tailed hawk if that’s more easy to visualize. But I digress. RNY bypasses are so special they get all the side effects of the lap band and the gastric sleeve, but don’t give the medal for worst long term issue caused by bariatric surgery to the hernia yet, because we have dumping syndrome with the bypass. What’s dumping system? Well, the intestine actually wasn’t designed to take food straight from the glorified esophagus. Due to concentration gradients and pH levels clashing, you could be dealing with severe diarrhea as soon as 30 minutes after eating. Any meal but especially meals with sugar has a very high chance of causing this. But don’t wait, there’s more horrific bonuses if you get this surgery, because there’s also our great friend bowel obstruction and gallstones. Again, along with all of the above risks.
And these surgeries sadly aren't even the tip of the iceberg for what fat people are forced to endure because of this horrifically fatphobic world that would rather fat people be dead than alive and happy.
This "medical device" literally locks a person's jaw shut so that they physically cannot open their mouth to eat. The person is supposed to survive on a "liquid diet," but that doesn't work. It's starvation enforced by locking a fat person's mouth shut. I also purposefully chose this photo instead of the photo of it actually in a person's mouth because that photo is disturbing and horrifying as fuck.
Some quotes about the device:
University of Otago Health Sciences Pro-Vice-Chancellor Paul Brunton called it "an effective, safe and affordable tool for people battling ob*sity."
...
In the study, the authors say that the main barrier to successful weight loss with dietary advice and restriction is "poor patient adherence." DentalSlim does solve that problem, as people will be forced to adhere while their jaw is bolted shut.
I'm not even going to explain how the word "ob*se" is a slur because people on this website who even claim to be progressive have shown me that we apparently can't handle critical thinking about "a medical term" being bigoted and discriminatory.
What's so wickedly disgusting about that second quote is that there is no scientifically-proven method of long-term, sustainable weight loss. No matter how hard a person tries, no matter how much "willpower" they have, they will gain back the weight. The failure rate of weight loss within 3-5 years is 95%. I don't think a 5% success rate would exist if weight loss actually was "that easy" and "just a matter of willpower and lifestyle changes!!!! uwu" So that second quote is saying that because human bodies physically cannot intentionally lose weight long-term, it's okay to pretend it's a fat person's fault and punish them by locking their jaw shut so they can never eat or speak for as long as they're forced to wear that device.
There's also jaw wiring surgeries:
And then there's this horror:
This is literally, in all senses of the word, medically-approved bulimia 2.0
I'm disgusted the name of this device is "Aspire Assist" because it literally means "Aspire to be skinny and we'll totally help you achieve that we swear just give us your money 😇" This cruel device is used to make the process easier for a fat person to throw up in a toilet after eating. Because, you know, eating disorders don't count if the person is fat, right? I mean, that's what my own OBGYN implied to me when I told her I had been severely suicidal for two months and was starving for 8-12 hours a day due to anorexia. Being told that I was doing a good job and to "just do it in a slightly healthier way. Intermittent fasting is good as long as it's due to choice and not mood 😊" when I was struggling not to die was incredible. And all because I'm a fat person with PCOS, which just makes her words extra disgusting because PCOS causes weight gain and prevents weight loss, making that 95% failure rate even higher for me. But as long as a fat person has an eating disorder that gets the job done, that's all the world cares about.
Inserting a tube into a fat person's stomach so they can throw up with the press of a button is a-okay in this world that oppresses fat people so horribly, and in far more ways than just surgery. Which, by the way, fat people have these surgeries FORCED on us. If we want something like knee surgery or top surgery or what have you, we're told to somehow beat that 95% failure rate and to do so by literally mutilating our bodies if we have to. I will never forget the person who told me about their twin brother who needed an organ transplant and was told they wouldn't give it to him unless he did one of these surgeries. He refused and died because his doctors didn't value his life enough to give him an organ transplant while having a fat body. The NHS also decided a great way to save money was to not allow fat people medical care like surgeries until a fat person magically lost weight.
I implore everyone to read this post about the plethora of ways in which fat people's oppression is deadly and horrid. Not even supposedly "progressive" people talk about fat people's oppression. In fact, I have been harassed by "progressive" people who get angry that I dare to point out that fatphobia is a real form of oppression that is not lesser to other forms of oppression that people actually give a shit about. I have been told shit by "progressive" people like "You want to be oppressed so bad." Do you know how disgusting that is to say to a fat person who the world is actively trying to kill every day for daring to live with the body they were given and not conforming to the world's body and beauty standards?
Here is another post about the hypocrisies of people who claim fatphobia "doesn't exist" and other fatphobic rhetoric.
Here is a post that describes how much fatphobia runs rampant in the queer community. Now imagine how much fatphobia affects other marginalized communities as well.
Here is a post about how horrible diet culture is, which is mainly used to harm fat people and encourage fatphobia in the medical field and our societies.
Here is a post about how badly fat children are bullied yet are viewed in this world as the aggressors because their bodies are "intimidating."
And here is a podcast co-hosted by prominent fat activist Aurbey Gordon that debunks the wellness industry. She also has published two books about fatphobia and written articles online if you'd rather read than listen to a podcast. Though the podcast's website also has transcripts.
Please actually give a fuck about fat people. Stop using our bodies as your acceptable punching bags. Stop using our bodies as metaphors for evil and bigotry and "ugliness." Stop making all of your bigoted villains and corrupt politician cartoons and greedy CEO characters fat. Stop portraying police as fat people overeating donuts while you call those fat bigoted caricatures "pigs." Stop using Trump's fatness as symbolism and your "hilarious" "progressive" joke. Stop bullying fat children. Stop accepting fatphobia in progressive fields like social work. Stop selling progressive merchandise without plus sizes, and especially don't charge fat people extra to wear your damn "progressive" t-shirt.
If you do care about equality, then it's time to care about fat people instead of continuing to use us as the bottom rung of your ladder to the top. Fat people fucking matter.
-Mod Worthy
Evil begins when you treat people as things. When you don't see a fat person as anything other than a thing that can be remolded to your idea of attractive - to the point of mutilating a major organ designed to keep us nourished and healthy - that's evil.
As an industry professional I'm chiming in to fact check a few things. In no way am I trying to apologize for the rampant fat phobia across the globe. But a lot of the procedures mentioned in this thread are outdated and/or are blatant fear-mongering. While I'll agree that the medical profession has a long way to go before I could call it truly inclusive. It helps no one to act as if the medical science isn't progressing with leaps and bounds every year. Long story short, if you have a doctor that's suggesting you get these procedures done when your life isn't at risk, GET A NEW DOCTOR.
--Lap bands are not industry standard, and its unheard of for surgeons to suggest the procedure today. --Roux en Y, Gastric Sleeve, and BPD are the most commonly performed gastric bypasses. (unfortunately) --The Dentalslim Diet Control magnet lock is NOT used by reputable industry professionals, and has been regarded as 'barbaric' by experts in the field. -- "Jaw wiring is not a commonly used method for weight loss" It hasn't been used since the 80s, y'all... Personally I do agree that these surgeries are morally reprehensible, These procedures are ALWAYS a last resort. They should NEVER be performed on an individual except in the most DIRE circumstances. (Good) Doctors are not forcing these procedures onto to patients simply because they are overweight. They are only considered after all other options are exhausted, and the patient's life is at risk, (from things like heart failure, etc). Source: I'm an industry professional and part of my job involves educating patients, because medical illiteracy is astronomically high in this country.
I feel its fair to point out when something is no longer used and A) it SHOULD be shocking these things were ever used period or developed. And B) weight first healthcare is rampant. A doctor will harp on weight loss at the detriment of any other common sense solutions. The notes are full of people sharing stories where the side effects of these types of things have ruined lives. Weight comes back AND their loved ones can barely function.
The "(good)" in that sentence is carrying a lot of implications that thousands don't see. We don't see the good doctors.
As a demographic we get shit doctors.
Like the weight first people who refuse even cancer screenings and then shocked pikachu face when the back pain is a tumor.
"As last resort" is....hopeful. It really speaks to the ideal and even then it falls short.
As an aside. How is the magnetic clamp on a jaw any more barbaric than ruining a healthy stomach? Given the rates of weight gain after surgery especially? Because honestly? It's not.
Idk. I guess the point is, thank you for the info on the surgeries that are used/not used but we don't live in an ideal world and good doctors are rare, these surgeries are pushed on fat people by bad doctors and changing doctors depends on insurance.
Mentally I'm going in circles rn but yeah.
-mod squirrel
There are some cases where high weight is a serious health problem, like poor knee joints, unhappy backs, and other mobility problems where being heavy is just brutal and keeps you from doing things. And I think some diabetes situations? Because of the way insulin and f*t-storing cells interact? And apparently heart failure.
But holy crap that statement can and so strongly does coexist with "our medical field is so fucking fucked up focusing on weight all the time holy fucking hell." Like, a doctor saying you need to lose weight before they'll even consider other "potential" causes? If we fired all the doctors who do that, our health care system wouldn't be the most expensive in the world any more, because we'd have so few left. We might be better off for it.
The medical field really needs an attitude shift, and it's happening, but dear gods it's slow.
If you have to interact with idiot doctors, at least get them to document everything they don't do in your chart. And go with a friend if you can. The general advice for the disabled communities dealing with hostile/unhelpful doctors might be useful.
It's slow to charge attitudes, especially in the face of capitalist advertising. But we do make progress. If nothing else, we don't wire teeth together regularly. And more people who are around kids and going to a gym, even if it is 100% because they want to lose weight, say it's because they want to be stronger.
Fighting tooth and nail sucks, but don't let the beats grind you down
Except no. There is literally no disease or condition where "weight loss" is actually an appropriate, evidence-based intervention. There is no disease or condition where acquired nutritional deficiences, multiple, is an an appropriate, evidence-based intervention.
Weight loss as an intervention fails for virtually everyone. Weight loss surgeries not only carry a risk of side effects, including death, they aren't actually successful at keeping all that "excess" weight off. Even the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery says most weight loss happens in the first two years, and weight regain is common by 5 years. They also say that most people don't actually lose all the weight that the doctors said they should.
If you think that two years and five years sounds familiar, you're right.
Additionally, all those things we are told that being fat causes? Like heart disease, joint pain, diabetes, etc.? For one, they happen to thin people too. For two, they don't automatically happen to all fat people. Not even the fattest person you can think of. We've all been led to believe there is a clear causal relationship between fatness and ill health - namely, that fatness causes ill health. There is no such clear and obvious causal link that has been found in research.
There may be a link, however, between WEIGHT CYCLING and ill health. Weight cycling is what happens when you are in that 95%+ of people who regain all the weight lost (plus usually a little more) within about five years. And then you diet again, and repeat the cycle. And again. And again. Like a lot of people do. THAT turns out to be a better explanation and causal factor than actual weight.
There's also a link between fat stigma and ill health - yeah, being shitty to fat people can and does negatively impact their health. Doctors refusing to run diagnostic tests amd instead attributing all health problems to someone's weight negatively impacts health.
You know what we do know usually improves people's health? Your basic ass "healthy lifestyle" stuff like engaging in comfortable, joyful movement every day. Having enough good food to eat. Having a good social life and social supports. Having things you think are fun and doing them. Being treated with the dignity you deserve just by being a human being. We have way, way better evidence for these things helping, regardless of a person's weight or health status, than we do for weight loss (which is frankly a low bar to clear, because we don't actually have any good evidence for weight loss, but nonetheless, basic shit like this goes soaring over it).
And you know what else we know works for joint pain? Addressing the actual issue, such as arthritis, injury, hypermobility, etc. Things like pain relief, physical therapy, setting the damn broken bone.
You know what we know works for diabetes? Addressing the actual issue, which is a fucking endocrine disorder that has a strong hereditary component and has to do with how your body makes or processes insulin. (And fun fact, there is growing evidence that Type 2 diabetes is also autoimmune in origin, and that COVID can trigger it.)
You know what works for sleep apnea? (And as an aside, it boggles me how many people think being fat is a one-way ticket to sleep apnea. Do you think there are gobs of fat just hanging around in people's noses and throats and lungs, impacting their breathing? Really?) Addressing the actual issue, like craniofacial structure, edema from other medical conditions, or issues with upper airway muscle function.
We actually have evidence-based treatments for heart disease, high cholesterol, joint pain, diabetes, sleep apnea, thyroid disease, high blood pressure, all the things we are told that being fat puts us at risk for (which, by the way, again, we don't actually have great causal evidence for that). Those evidence based treatments work for fat folks, too, every single day. Weight loss does not.
So yeah. It's shitty for doctors to tell people to lose weight before any other treatment. But it's shitty for them to tell people to lose weight during or after other treatment, too. Weight loss does not work, and it in and of itself can raise your risk for a lot of conditions.
It's shitty.
Oh and by the way, the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery still lists gastic banding as an approved surgery. They also list one that bypasses ⅔ to ¾ of the upper small intestine (hello nutritional deficiencies!!!), and one where a saline balloon is placed in the stomach.
In the United States, there’s a thing called JCAHO, the Joint Commission Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. The majority of US states require JCAHO accreditation for a healthcare organization to be authorized to receive Medicare and Medicaid payments, and most private health insurance require it as well.
When the assessors from the Joint Commission go to a PCP practice, they pull patient records at random to look at what kind of care is being offered. If they pull a fat patient’s record and it doesn’t show that they were counseled about their weight in some way during every visit, that’s points off of the assessment for the practice.
This is why we go to the doctor for carpal tunnel or chronic sinusitis and get asked if we’re interested in weight loss surgery.
And it is always weight loss surgery. It’s never “what’s your diet like?“ Or “are you on a weight loss plan?” It’s never “talk to me about how you exercise.” It’s “have you considered bariatric surgery?“ Or “we partner with a good bariatric practice, they have seminars about weight loss surgery, can I put you on their schedule?“ Or it’s what I got the last time I saw a new doctor: “why haven’t you considered surgery to do something about your weight?”
To say that these procedures are only considered as a last resort for patients in dire medical circumstances is patently false. These procedures are routinely suggested to every patient who meets the weight criteria, even if they have other issues that make them a poor candidate for surgical procedures.
And now, if you are hesitant about mutilating your body with surgery to create functional anorexia for some temporary weight loss, the next thing that will be suggested, or perhaps the first thing, before surgery, will be the off label use of diabetes medication to create medical anorexia. Is it safe, especially long term? Probably not. Are patients experiencing gastroparesis, an extremely painful and extremely dangerous condition in which the gastrointestinal system becomes paralyzed? Yes.
But for the US medical system, the never ending, statistically futile, but highly lucrative quest for thinness is more important than functioning body systems or patient safety. 
I also want to quickly add that the point about the jaw wiring surgery was never "This is happening right now!" If that was supposed to be the takeaway, then why would the screenshot have included up front that it was done in the 70s and 80s? The point is that any of these surgeries were ever done at all, were ever viewed as normal and acceptable, were ever viewed as better than fat people being allowed to live and be happy. There are countless news articles even from supposedly progressive news sources that support this shit like the jaw locking device and the medically-approved bulimia. Vox even acknowledged in their article how the study showing the latter's "success" had a ton of validity errors and bad methodology and didn't even follow the participants long enough, many of which left the study even. But Vox STILL wrote later in the article that they were in support of giving fat people bulimia with the device. They also have numerous videos in support of shit like giving fat people diabetes medication for weight loss purposes. The point of mentioning the jaw wiring surgery is that the world ever believed these procedures were an acceptable cost to force an oppressed group to conform to society's oppressive standards of what counts as "actually human."
And then that one person in support of these surgeries who literally censored the word "fat"? That is all I need to know about that person's views. If you can't even use the most basic word for my body type because you believe it's a taboo slur, but the ACTUAL slur of "ob*se" is okay to you, then you have no right to decide what is and isn't fatphobic. Period.
People in the US can't easily switch doctors. We have these surgeries and weight loss in general forced on us every day. Even by our own families and friends and EMPLOYERS. I have heard multiple times of fat people who were encouraged by their employers to go get a weight loss surgery so that the fat person would "look the part" for the company's brand. My own father who is a doctor has suggested to me weight loss surgery when I was barely past the age of 18 and was a size 20. His wife has gotten a weight loss surgery. I go to a PSYCHIATRIST who has a giant sign outside her practice that says "MEDICAL WEIGHT LOSS" because she makes money off of fat people who are desperately trying to escape our oppression. There are billboards and advertisements everywhere for weight loss surgery, let alone weight loss shit in general. When I was trying to get tested for autism and ADHD, the office that would do the tests also does "bariatric evaluations."
And then the fact that a lot of people to be able to obtain some of these surgeries have to actually gain weight to do so? These surgeries are a scam that the medical field blatantly encourages. Fat people are severely oppressed and face extremely deadly treatment even outside of the medical field, but the world refuses to care because thin privilege and billions of dollars made off of oppressing fat people are more worth it than not fucking killing us.
I meant to note in my first reblog, “jaw wiring” for weight loss certainly didn’t end in the 1980s. In fact, the first time many people even knew that it was a real thing that could be done is when a cast member of the 1993 season of MTV’s The Real World had it done while they were on the show, (and maybe a size 8, if that, but working in the entertainment industry) and spent several episodes on a liquid diet and speaking through their artificially clenched teeth. The influence of that being shown on an incredibly popular show as a reasonable “fast” weight loss option, even for someone who was thin and just wanted to be thinner, was vast and immeasurably harmful.
Hi I live in the UK and have been told I need WLS before they will investigate my suspected endometriosis.
I am physically disabled due to a birth defect in both feet that wasn't picked up until I was 23! I have PCOS! I have also been told I need WLS rather than any attempt to correct my malformed limbs.
My stepmother was told she needed WLS in order to qualify for her SECOND knee replacement. They'd already done one!
A friend who is a liver transplant patient, who has FOUR hernias, and has compromised kidney function, who is functionally bed bound, has had his liver specialist arguing his case because the hernia surgeon wants to give him WLS while repairing the hernias.
This is not fucking uncommon. Its barbaric AND it causes chronic illness.
This is a fucked up world.
Two links in this post don't work anymore.
Here is the link to the post that discusses how deadly fatphobia is and how fat people are killed every day because of oppression.
Here is the link to the post that explains some of the ways diet culture is widespread, illogical, deadly, and dangerous.
If this is your first time realizing that fat people are oppressed, I extremely suggest educating yourself about fatphobia and diet culture. This post is a good foundation for opening your eyes to how fat people are treated. Later in the post are links to resources that include scientific sources and data.
