She turned down bariatric surgery

A recent issue of JAMA (Dec. 7, 2011) has an update on a woman who had counseling about the various options of bariatric surgery in 2009--Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, and laparoscopic adustable gastric banding. She suffered from severe obesity, depression, anxiety and osteoarthritis. She also had hypothroidism with Graves disease, high blood pressure, osteoarthritis of both knees, a benign breast mass, and menometrorrhagia. Her doctor recommended the surgery because she'd been unable to lose weight dieting. Although I'm not sure why the "update" was published, we did learn she chose not to proceed and that she believed she was being rushed. She thought it might affect her mood and her social life and she wouldn't be happy. Now after 2 years, she's considering it again--wants to enjoy her retirement, she says.

I only mention this because weight counseling is included in Obamacare, because the nanny state is so worried about obesity. It seems that people don't always accept, understand, or believe their doctors, even if it's covered by insurance. Who knew?