Thanks for your reply. It wasn't my intent to 'put down' or mock anyone who needs these procedures. Serious abdominal surgery, though, strikes me as an extremely dangerous way to force someone into making dietary/lifestyle changes.
Honestly, I didn't think you did put anybody down, you asked a question -- a question that more of these idiot stars should ask their doctors, in my opinion. The surgeon who operated on my husband put him through a battery of psycological tests. He told us a lot of obese people use food, especially carbohydrates, as a "drug", and some of his patients went on to develop other addictions (mostly alcohol and drugs) once they couldn't eat as much as they wanted. He sent those folks to shrinks instead of operating on them. The sad thing is some of those patients just went to other, less ethical doctors who gave them the operation anyway. You are right: serious abdominal surgery is NOT something to do because you saw somebody do it on TV! Believe me, after seeing what hubby went through during recovery, I'll stick to diet and excercise, thank you very much!
Most of the pre-GBP people I counseled had severe health problems. For them, it was a matter of life and death, not vanity. A precursor also was that they had tried various methods of weight loss that had failed.