My thoughts about WLS and who should have (WARNING: Big Opinions You Might Not Like)

Okay, let me get this straight.  Us "lightweights" should wait until our bodies are ravaged by diabetes, heart problems and arthritis before we undergo what is major, potentially life threatening surgery even under perfect cir****tances?  Makes perfect sense to me - NOT.  You're an idiot.

Since we're talking "opinions", it seems that you're obsessed with BMI.  While it is true that BMI is a biomarker for measuring obesity, it is not the be-all or end-all for WLS criteria.  While it may be that there are those who seek WLS strictly for vanity purposes, I have yet to hear from one.  As my years increased, so did my co-morbid conditions.  I first sought WLS surgery as a means to lose the weight I needed to before I could have a total knee replacement.  At the time it was my only co-morbid.  I was denied and decided to live with the pain of bone-on-bone osteoarthritis in my left knee.  However, that also limited my movement that may helped me in other areas.  Movement may have helped the hypertension that developed next, but I'm not sure how movement would have helped my severe sleep apnea. 

I was 57 when I had my WLS and I saw my mortality getting a little too close for comfort.  I have wondered about what happens to those who get WLS in their 20's.  However,  I have also seen way too many people die in their 40's and 50's from co-morbids and obesity.    One could also compare WLS surgery to organ replacement.  Why undergo a heart transplant?  No one knows how many years it will give one and look at all the drugs one must take to fight rejection...  It makes vitamins and supplements look like an aspirin a day.  Why are transplant patients seen as so brave, yet WLS patients are seen as cowards who seek the easy way out or so vain that their appearance is the only thing that caused them to get WLS.  I admit that this is an extreme comparison that the Apples and Oranges rebuttal could easily be applied, but in the end it's all fruit (or health issues).

I find your approaching chubby pre-ops and suggesting movement and healthy eating to be incredibly offensive and insensitive.  Do they wear stickers that say "Just trying to improve my appearance."  How can you tell by your assessment of "chubby" what health issues they are facing?  It also seems to me that you have bought into cultural assumptions and prejudices by limiting your insight to age and BMI.  But, hey, that's just my opinion.

Alot of very well thought out replies have already been posted with real facts and useful information, so there is no need for me to replicate those. The sentiment that occured to me while I read your post is that wls is an extremely difficult and personal choice and while I struggled to make the choice that was right for me, I know that everyone else had their own struggle. Truly learning to love and accept ourselves and others includes having faith in people to make the choices that are right for them free from judgement. I still have many friends who are quite large and I continue to love them and find them beautiful. Just as I need their acceptance and support to be successful in my journey, I find no fault with the choices they make for their life. I respect their right to make that choice. On the other hand someof the people who have influenced my journey the most (Lisa, Lori, Val to name just a very few) have started with lower bmi's as you describe and have done incredilbly. I have immeasurable respect for these women and those who I have never met (Haley, Gina, and others) whose wisdom, humor and capacity to cut through the crap and provide the info and support have kept me going many times. I just think it is presumptious and discrimintory to judge anyone so harshly without having walked in their shoes. This board has been an amazing resource for me and without the contributions of these women would be a much bleaker place. Honestly if not for Lisa, I would unlikely have ever had this surgery at all, which I believe saved my life. I am grateful for the voice of everyone here and I hope the spirit of acceptance that has guided your life as a larger woman will extend to everyone. Discrimination in any form is wrong and hurtful. Just my opinion.

I share your history and fundamentally agree with you-- although I would not be quick to paint all smaller people with a broad brush: that's sizist as well.

See my quote for my philosophy-- but it comes down to this:  when your body becomes physically untenable to live with-- you need to do what you need to do to get it to health.

People who have WLS for reasons of vanity make no goddamn sense to me personally, but I don't have to live their lives, you know? They will pay the consequences of those choices, not me.

Yes, I wish fewer would. I wish more would spend their energies on self acceptance *before* opting for the knife. But what I wish to be true and know to be right seldom translates into the mass consciousness-- people are who they are and do what they do because they simply don't know any better, sometimes. In any case, it's not my job to judge...just to take care of myself and keep my head clear, and hope each person making their individual choice gets what they truly need.

Thank you, Jupiter.  I think my post triggered many people into seeing me as judging them for having WLS at lower BMIs, which was not my intent.  What concerns me is when people *do* have WLS because they "hate" themselves for being fat.  It's one thing to have WLS because life has become truly , physically difficult due to body size.  To me that's a big medical decision to address a big medical issue.  But when one makes a medical decision to address a *societal* issue, then the trade-off may be very bad.

I wasn't judging people but expressing concern that fat hatred fuels alot of decisions.  I think people on this list have taken this to mean that I think I should be the supreme leader with the power to make decisions over their lives.  Poppy****  I just hope they are making INFORMED decisions for their health, not because society tells them they are "ugly."

Horse****

I understood it as I believe you intended it, actually.

You have to realize that what you're espousing is pretty radical, and not everyone will embrace it--  just be careful not to be exclusive or judge while making your points:  you had some good ones, but I am afraid you lost a lot of people because they were surrounded by some inflammatory and judgemental stuff.

   I was truly shocked when I read your post.  I honestly believe you feel like a sell out. Possibly you feel that after so many years of preaching fat acceptance you have betrayed your ideals. No doubt you spent years being very vocal about the idea that people can be fat and still healthy, that people who desire to be thin have succumbed to our culture's idea of what is beautiful, etc. 
   Quite honestly, it would be hard to be in your position--a long time, very vocal advocate of fat acceptance. You have probably strongly encouraged many, many others to embrace the beauty of the rubenesque woman and preached the evils of what our culture perceives as beautiful and healthy.  Now, you could be on the verge of becoming a normal size, possibly even thin woman. On some level it has got to feel like somewhat of a betrayal of so much of what you have advocated. I apologize if I am wrong but I am just basing my assumptions from what is contained in your post. 
   Possibly, to feel justified in WLS surgery as an acceptable solution for yourself, you have formed the opinion that as long as someone has a BMI of 50+ it's fine. Any "lightweight" or someone in the 200lb range who undergoes WLS, is doing it purely as the result of "society's fatism."  Lightweights need only to move more and eat less. I just feel as if you arrived at your standard for those who should have the choice of WLS, so that you can feel as if you had no other choice. You HAD to undergo WLS. 
   I think your habit of approaching "chubby" people at seminars and encouraging them to tweak their diets and move more, is so hypocritical. It's offensive to me if a thin person were to tell me that. However, if someone YOUR size were to tell me that--absolutely the height of hypocrisy!    

I think this response is spot on. 

I believe that those of us who loved our lives and our bodies and embraced ourselves as sensual, round people before surgery are not big in number and often get lost in the melee on boards where most people celebrate the re-emergence of their collarbones daily, if you know what I am saying.

We're not going to have the same "Wow!" moments. We're not going to share in all the excitement. We're sometimes going to mourn our old selves, lifestyles, and self-identities, and yes-- probably going to feel like "sell-outs." So I see where the OP is coming from-- but I do take exception to the notion that all lightweights are somehow "wrong"-- since I really don't know what their motivations are/were.

And as you intimated, I woud never EVER approach anyone, of any size, to tell them how to "correct" their lifestyle. Even the most morbidly obese people. because to my thinking, high -risk lifestyles aren't that uncommon-- people skydive and bungee jump every day-- so as long as it's working for them for the time being, it's not my job to prosthelytize. There's no one in America that isn't aware of the relative risks of obesity-- and if they decide to "do something about it", it will be on their timetable and for their reasons, not my own.

Thanks for sharing these thoughts.

yes!  While there has been many, many great responses the OP, yours is exactly what I was thinking. 

Anyone who has been involved with NAAFA (National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance) will have an idea of where the OP is coming from (I am not saying she's right). It has to be a terrible place to be, coming from that mindset.