According to new research, the number of teenagers who underwent surgical weight loss between 2010 and 2017 doubled. According to a research released Monday by the American Academy of Pediatrics, minority adolescents, who have a greater proportion of obesity, are less likely to undergo weight loss surgery.
9,014 patients aged 12 to 19 who underwent metabolic and bariatric surgery between 2010 and 2017 were the subject of the study’s data analysis. Overall, the researchers discovered that the number of adolescent patients undergoing metabolic and bariatric surgery increased from 2.29 per 100,000 in 2010 to 4.62 per 100,000 in 2017. Over 75% of patients were female, a figure that remained constant over the course of the study.
In 2017, 45% of patients were white, 14.6% were Black, and 26% were Hispanic, according to the researchers. The percentages don’t match up with the obesity statistics for kids between the ages of 2 and 19 in these groups: 25.6% of Black kids, 24.2% of Hispanic kids, and 16.1% of White kids are fat.
According to research co-author Baddr Shakhsheer, MD, a paediatric surgeon at St. Louis Children’s Hospital in Missouri, the treatments are life-changing for children with severe obesity.
The quality of life for these people significantly improves, he noted, in addition to the medical and physiological benefits. “These youngsters are already suffering from obesity, and I believe that we are detecting it earlier. The higher quality and longer the patients’ lives will be, the earlier we can intervene.
The authors stated that it is crucial for healthcare professionals to collaborate with families, particularly the most at-risk and vulnerable ones, in order to increase equitable access to comprehensive, multidisciplinary, pediatric-specific bariatric programmes. The current results simply serve to highlight the fact that minority groups are disproportionately affected by obesity-related health inequities and that they are still less likely to undergo surgical weight loss treatment than their white counterparts.
