South

Adele Wyatt from Hedge End near Southampton didn’t mince her words about her weight issue.

"You’ve got to eat to be fat and fat makes you lazy, I don’t care what anybody says.

"I abused my body."

Adele weighed 134.7kg

Vital statistics

When Inside Out met 40-year-old Adele, who’s 171cm tall, she weighed 134.7kg and was a size 30.

Her Body Fat Status was 56.5% which meant 76.1kg of her body weight was fat. 

She had a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 46.1.

Drastic measures

After failed diets, failed counselling, increasing weight and the problems that go with it, her GP recommended her for bariatric surgery.

She was admitted to the private Spire Hospital, under the NHS contract scheme.  
 
We met Adele in November 2008 and followed her through her dramatic life changing weight loss surgery.  

Initially Adele had gone to her doctor to ask for a gastric band.

But, as we were to discover, Adele was later prescribed an irreversible gastric bypass operation as the only way to solve her weight problem for good.

Though drastic, the National Obesity Forum claims this operation is the best way to tackle the obesity problem in the UK in cases like this where all else has failed. 

The organisation says fat is the last bastion of prejudice.

It's something which Adele can identify with, "I’d walk around town and people would look at my stomach not at my face.  It stopped me going out of the house."

 Controversial decision

The National Institute for Clinical Excellence's (NICE's) decision to sanction gastric bypass operations on the NHS was hugely controversial. 

The operation costs roughly £8,000 a time but the National Obesity Forum believes the cost benefit is clear.  

The operation carries a one in 150 chance of dying

It also believes Primary Care Trusts which raise the qualifying barrier above their recommended BMI of 40 are simply storing up problems for the future health of these morbidly obese patients.  

In Adele’s case, the cheaper option, a gastric band was rejected as the surgeon Michael Van Den Bossche believed it would not have cured Adele’s problem.   

During our research we encountered many case studies who talked about 'cheating the band' by liquidising fattening foods and snacking on chocolate. 

None of them were happy to go on camera.  

No going back

In 85% of cases bypass patients are cured of their diabetes in a matter of days and Adele soon came off her diabetes drugs.

Before, she was on the brink of needing insulin injections on a daily basis.

Bariatric Surgery involves the tube through which food passes, and which therefore allows the body to absorb nutrients and calories, being reduced.

So, effectively an express shoot is created between the new small 'pouch' which works as a stomach and the bowel.  

The operation is irreversible with a one in 150 chance of dying compared to a one in 1,000 chance with a gastric band.  

What can cause problems are leaks or a blood clot.

Problems

Two weeks after Adele’s surgery she found she could not eat solids, even in mushed up form, she survived on milky drinks. 

The Spire Hospital whisked Adele in and established what was wrong. 

Adele walks for half an hour each day

A balloon was inserted to widen the entrance to Adele’s new stomach to 18mm. 

The whole thing took about five minutes. 

Success?

Adele is now able to eat small amounts of food as planned and she is losing weight. 

"I walk half an hour a day and I can walk and talk at the same time, my energy levels are up already."

The National Obesity Forum believes 5,000 of these operations a year should be done to tackle the obesity crisis in the UK.