Well I totally get the media bias...

We complain that the DS doesnt get screen time.... has anyone really thought about why?

What do the band, RNY and VSG all have in common.

You have to diet your brains out usually to keep the weight off. (not always but a lot)

Thoes 3 get so much media attention because its the "we got our selves this way so we should have to struggle and work to keep it off" beyond what "normies" do. The DS makes you nearly normal, how can you be rediculed if you really cant tell if someone had the DS.

This is exactly why the DS will never get its true fame. We are allowed to eat food.

Maybe.

Or maybe it's explained by numbers. Very few surgeons perform DS and a very small fraction of bariatric surgeries performed are DS.

While numbers might play a part but its known that the VSG is one part of the DS. But there have been some celebrities that have also got the DS and never got the attention that thoes with the RNY, band and now the VSG.

But personally I believe its the media and its obsession with the punish the fat people frame of mind that drives it more than the numbers. If numbers drove it the known better statistics of the DS would bring it to the forefront.

And FYI not knocking any surgery, just stating what anymore has become quite apparent.

I think that this could really be part of it. Stick with the mentality of "you must diet to get out of this."

I do think much of society has that attitude, but believe that it's also due to insurance only wanting to pay for what is cheapest, which the DS isn't.

I forget the exact numbers, but insurance companies know that most people are only with them for an average of 3 years, so they aren't as interested in the long term outcome of the surgery. I think that is also why so many bands are still being done. Especially now that they are all adding that "one WLS per lifetime" clause, so now they've paid for a band, and are done, and have gotten of pretty cheap.

Also not as lucrative for the surgeons. I think the surgeons that do the DS, and also NOT the band, are the truly compassionate ones that must have gone into their profession for a reason other than the income.

The DS is the least profitable of the surgeries.

The lap band is the most profitable.

It's that simple.

VSG takes 45 minutes.  My self-pay cost was $18K.  It's a cash-cow.

To your other point, If you talk to any 'normal' sized people  -- particularly those over the age of 40, they almost assuredly diet  in one way or another to stay that way even if they didn't have to as younger adults.  My in-laws who are healthy, active, and fit in their late 60's diet, go tot he gym, etc.  My 77 year old mother who is 118lbs does south beach if she goes over 120lbs. 

We're descended from people who efficently stored fat. The ones who did not store fat during times of plenty starved during times of famine and didn't pass along their genetic material. Now, in an age of 'plenty' where few will experience true 'hunger' and  calorically dense foods are taken for granted, our bodies still want to store fat in the majority of cases. Food addiction, emotional eating, etc., are luxuries that the body capaitalizes on.
 
Part of the 'attitude' that WLS is a cheat comes from the fact that in order to maintain weight within 'healthy' or 'normal' but not 'average' a certain amount of discipline is required.  Call it a diet or a lifestyle, whatever, that's the reality.  "Normies" have to work to stay that way, by and large.