Moment of Truth: Patient Seminars

A healthy balanced diet and regular exercise are recommended for everyone to achieve an ideal weight and optimal health. If your BMI is below 30 and you do not have any serious weight-related health complications, diet and exercise should be the main activities to bring you down to and, more importantly, keep you at a healthy weight. Before beginning any exercise program, consult a physician. Additionally, your physician or a nutritionist may be able to help you create an appropriate reduced calorie diet.

Recommended for people with a BMI of at least 30, or a BMI of 27 or greater with two or more obesity-related conditions, FDA-approved weight-loss medications are an option. All decisions should be discussed with your doctor and be combined with diet and exercise. Before a doctor can prescribe any medication, he or she will need to determine if this weight-loss approach is right for you, and will want to discuss your weight history, goals and level of commitment to a weight-loss program.

For people who are morbidly obese, weight-loss surgery is a clinically-accepted effective treatment option for long-term weight control and has been shown to help control related health conditions in morbidly obese patients, like Type 2 diabetes and hypertension.1,2,3

There are a number of weight-loss surgery options available, and in the United States, gastric bypass and the LAP-BAND® System, the first FDA-approved adjustable gastric band for use in weight reduction, are the two most common procedures. Gastric bypass involves cutting and stapling the stomach to make it smaller and connecting it to the intestine.
The LAP-BAND® System involves placing an adjustable gastric band around the top portion of the patient's stomach, creating a small pouch that can hold only a small amount of food. The band can be tightened or loosened to help patients feel full sooner and longer while maintaining a healthy diet.

To find out potential weight-loss treatment options for you, complete the Moment of Truth Self-Assessment Tool.

  • Following are potential available treatment options based on health risk as shown in the above chart:
  • Minimal and Low: Healthy eating and/or moderate diet and increased physical activity/lifestyle changes
  • Moderate: All the above plus a low calorie diet
  • High and Very High: All the above plus drug therapy and a very low calorie diet
  • Extremely High: All the above plus weight-loss surgery

To learn more about weight-loss surgery options, talk to a bariatric surgeon. Find a bariatric surgeon

1 American Society for Bariatric Surgery. Rationale for the Surgical Treatment of Morbid Obesity. Available at www.asbs.org/html/rationale/rationale.html. Accessed 1/17/07.
2 Shekelle PG, Morton SC, Maglione M, Suttorp M, Tu W, Li Z, Maggard M, Mojica WA, Shugarman L, Solomon V. Pharmacological and Surgical Treatment of Obesity., Evidence Report/Technology Assessment No. 103. (Prepared by the Southern California-RAND Evidence-based Practice Center, under Contract No. 290-02-0003.) AHRQ Publication No. 04-E028-1. Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. July 2004.
3 Muscelli E, Mingrone G, Camastra S et al. Differential effect of weight loss on insulin resistance in surgically treated obese patients. Am J Med 2005; 118: 51-7.
4 Shape Up America! Guidance for treatment of adult obesity. October 1996; 10-12.