The Truth About Weight Loss Surgery

Does weight loss surgery really work and what are the lifelong consequences? Nicky Pellegrino meets two women who have taken the surgical route to slimming, like National MP Paula Bennett did a few months ago, to find out the reality of its success and what life is like after going under the knife.

Be honest, when you heard the news that politician Paula Bennett had undergone gastric bypass surgery in a bid to lose weight and get her health back on track, was there a tiny part of you that felt she’d taken the easy route to shedding unwanted kilos? Surely becoming slimmer is just about self-control, cutting the calories and exercising more, and there shouldn’t be any need for surgical intervention? Isn’t it sort of cheating?

That is what most of us think, says Kate Berridge, an Auckland bariatric nurse. Even though there is plenty of evidence to show the eat less/ move more approach to weight loss isn’t working, that it locks people into a cycle of yo-yo dieting and ultimately they only get heavier, we still somehow have faith that the next miracle eating plan will be the one to succeed.

Kate has worked with about 5000 people who have had weight loss surgery. She’ll tell you it’s not the easy route it might seem. “But it’s the only way we currently have of achieving meaningful longterm weight loss. No amount of exercising and eating Paleo is going to do that. It might happen in the short term but you follow those people and every single one of them will have regained a huge chunk because that’s how the body responds to weight loss.”