A longform story in Vox followed Jewel Francis-Aburime, an 18-year-old who opted for bariatric surgery after repeated attempts at dieting and exercising failed to curb her obesity.

The author called bariatric surgery medicine’s “most underused tool,” presenting evidence bariatric surgery leads to more substantial and lasting weight loss than lifestyle changes while reducing the risk of cancer and type 2 diabetes.

And Thomas Inge, MD, a University of Colorado pediatrician who is studying adolescent bariatric surgery, said these procedures should be considered for young people.

Lives are “destroyed by severe obesity,” he told Vox, referring to a body mass index (BMI) of 40 or more. “I’m much more worried about the consequences of not operating.”

Before her gastric sleeve procedure in April, which reduced the size of her stomach by about 80 percent, Francis-Aburime had a BMI of 52 and weighed 394 pounds. By December she weighed 310 pounds and would order food at restaurants in to-go containers because she could never finish the portion in one sitting.

Many physicians are still hesitant to refer adolescent patients for weight-loss surgery, and one expert told Vox “we’re not going to cut our way out of the obesity epidemic.”

But other believe medical practice lags behind the positive results shown in studies of bariatric surgery and that more young patients should go under the knife.

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