A lot of obese children have the risk of getting afflicted with heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes in addition to liver failure and blindness. Nick Finer, the consultant endocrinologist at University College London Hospital and an obesity specialist, stated that belonging to the most hated group in society is psychologically affected.

Professor Finer said, “When someone wants to insult you, they’re quite happy to call you a fat bastard. And it’s the ‘fat’ that’s the insult”. Children’s popularity is directly proportional to their size, according to a recent report and overweight children are shunned and vilified by classmates. Fat children suffer from rejection, loneliness and low self-esteem.

Finer announced at a meeting of the Royal Society of Medicine in London that severely obese children should be allowed to have gastric bands, and undergo other forms of bariatric surgery, as the treatment has worked in adults.

Surgery will tend to save overweight children the irritation of diet-and-exercise programs that are likely to fail. Moreover, surgery would add years to their lives and they will get rid of the psychological burden of having an over-weight body.

But, the operation is not without complications, revealed Finer. He added that a gastric band, or any form of surgery, is not a quick fix. The diet of the patient is changed for good. There is a need for pre-surgery counseling to identify people who are committed to change.