Medical Indications for Weight-Loss Surgery in Adolescents: But Are There Other Equally Important Indications?

In an important report of the Teen–Longitudinal Assessment of Bariatric Surgery (Teen-LABS) Study of bariatric surgery in adolescents, Inge and colleagues¹ have shown that although minor and major complications do occur in the early postoperative period after weight-loss surgery, the mortality was nil and the morbidity was treatable and similar to that in adults. Indeed, in adults with morbid obesity (we should use the better, socially acceptable term medically complicated obesity), bariatric surgery is now acknowledged and accepted currently as the most effective approach to losing and maintaining weight loss to improve or reverse weight-related disorders.