Gastric bypass surgery performed by British surgeons on a 17 year old British teenager who weighed nearly 476 pounds helped the young girl lose 280 pounds which was actually more than a half of her weight. The misfortune for Malissa Jones of Selby, England, came as she reached the age of two when she began to gain weight very quickly and the kid’s problems only aggravated as she grew up.

The girl recalls she always felt hungry and to suppress this she consumed about 15 000 calories a day, 7.5 times more than the daily calorie intake for a girl of her age. What made things worse was that the most part of her diet consisted of such high-calorie foods as chips, chocolate and burgers.

By the age of sixteen Malissa’s excessive weight had brought about many illnesses that always accompany obesity. The girl who could hardly move suffered from such problems as asthma and angina pectoris attacks and in addition she could not sleep without an oxygen mask. Eventually, doctors told Malissa she had urgent need to lose excessive weight because otherwise she might have not reached her 18-th birthday.

Malissa decided to resort to surgeons’ assistance after she’d realized that all her efforts to lose weight through diets could not bring the results she desired. Operative treatment was a success and within the first year after the operation Malissa managed to lose almost 280 pounds. Now the girl is getting ready for a surgical removal of saggy skin that remained as a reminder of a rapid and considerable weight loss.

Let’s recall that gastric bypass surgery divides the stomach into two pouches and allows food to bypass part of the small intestine so you get less nutrients and calories. It must be added that due to a high degree surgery-related risks, gastric bypass is not recommended in Great Britain for patients under 18. As to Malissa Jones‘ case, the operation was the only way she could survive.

Source of the image: surgsoc.googlepages.com.