As many as 90,000 children in England could be considered eligible for bariatric surgery, yet only 18 operations were performed last year. Shouldn’t there be many more?
When Vicky Counsell was 16, her doctor told her that if she didn’t have surgery to reduce her weight, there was a good chance it would kill her. She was 140kg (22st), her weight gain accelerated by the steroids she was taking for a lung condition, and she had tried everything to lose it. “It was an easy choice,” she says. “It was life or death.” At 17, she had gastric band surgery, in which a band around the stomach creates a small pouch, meaning only a small amount of food can be consumed. Ten years on, she has lost more than 44kg (7st). “Before the surgery, I couldn’t even walk on the flat for 200m,” she says. “Now I walk for miles.” She works as a support worker for older people, a physical job she couldn’t have done before.
Although it has “definitely been worth it”, she wasn’t prepared for how difficult living with a gastric band would be. “I remember the doctors telling me I wouldn’t be able to eat a lot of food, but I don’t think I realised how tough it would be,” she says. “At the very beginning I couldn’t even keep water or juice down. Now I can’t eat bread, pizza or anything high-carb.” It can be difficult going to restaurants with friends and explaining to waiters what she can and can’t eat, and she says her portion sizes are about what you would give a child. It is a lifelong commitment, which as a teenager she says she didn’t really grasp.
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