It has been discovered that severely obese teenagers can end up losing much more weight by undergoing a radical type of surgery which involves stomach banding, than they can via the more general and traditional way of cutting back of foods rich in calories and exercising.

A recently published study revealed that 84% of the 25 youngsters treated with gastric band surgery ended up dropping more than 50% of their excess body weight, after a period of two years, as compared to only 12% of another
25 adolescents in the other group.

The average weight loss was much more in the group which underwent surgery.

"Gastric banding should be considered for those severely obese adolescents who find primary weight loss methods unsuccessful", said Paul O'Brien, lead author of the study and Head of the Centre for Obesity Research and Education at Monash University.

Details of the study have been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.