How do bariatricians approach weight loss?

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Host: How do Bariatricians approach weight loss?

Dr. William McCarthy: In general, Bariatricians first of all, are specialists in weight loss. Bariatricians generally look at excess weight, not as a cosmetic problem, they look at it as a medical problem in and of itself. They look at the weight as a disease. They look at it as a long-term and chronic disease which it is. A Bariatrician will usually approach patient individually. They look at the patient s medical history, their eating history, pyschologic history and then perform test. They may even include a metabolic test to check how many calories a day that patient burns. They develop an individual plan of treatment that will encourage rapid weight loss but more importantly, long-term weight loss with certain goals in mind and the goal is not about losing weight quickly, it's about keeping that weight off overtime.

A Bariatrician will work with a person regarding their eating habits or try to help a person deal with the stressful situations that come up to teach them that when Aunt Sally is in the hospital, it doesn t mean that they have to eat more. We can also work with patients. What happens when the child comes home with a bad report card? It doesn t necessarily have to cause an eating event.

So, a Bariatrician will work with those events overtime and get to know a patient. Bariatricians also can use medications that can help with weight loss and the American Society of Bariatric Physicians has a very rigid set of guidelines that are used, but they are applied individually to help the individual patient lose weight in the long-term.

So, what we see is that patients can lose a significant amount of weight. We have patients that lose just as much weight under a medical program as they do under the surgical approach. However, this is a non-invasive approach and there are no permanent changes made to the body.

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