Behind the before and after photos: The hidden reality of weight loss surgery.

I had a gastric sleeve 18 months ago after multiple doctors told me it would fix my health problems, and the medication they were giving me wasn't really working. Well guess what, losing the weight didn't improve my health - but now I have a lot of loose skin, and digestion issues that I didn't have previously. My mental health is also worse - I'm sure people think they are giving you a compliment by telling you how great you look "now" and how well you are doing - but all I hear is that I wasn't good enough before, and how my value is based on my looks. When I mention to anyone that I didn't get the desired effect, they insist that I must at least feel better, and have more energy etc. When I say that actually I dont - they basically accuse me of lying. The weight bias runs so deep, even in medical professionals, and having this surgery exposes it. The culture of online support groups is also really detrimental with most shaming people for eating the "wrong" foods - i.e. carbs, sugar, fat or simply too much. There are so many meal photos, with the first and second comment - "should you really eat xxx" "did you eat all of that, I am x months out and I can only eat a tiny bit of that". The whole thing feels like a race to an eating disorder.

What the surgeons don't tell people is that by removing 75% of your stomach, you are almost guaranteed to be malnourished for the rest of your life. Your stomach just cant handle the volume of healthy food it needs to extract energy and nutrients. Iron deficiency, osteoporosis from lack of calcium, low potassium are common lifelong issues after the surgery.

They also usually gloss over the fact that further surgery is required every 10 years or the band will fuse into your body. And that if you eat too much you will throw up, leading to huge complications with people developing or exacerbating bulimia, and permanent damage to the oesophagus and teeth from the acid.

Unless the surgery is required to bring someone into the weight limit for a critical operation, theres almost always a less risky option- often its just to focus on health and live with the weight. Being overweight definitely doesn't have to mean being unfit or unhealthy.

Theres a reason that 4/5 of the people who have the surgery are women- the main motivation is not health, its appearance due to social pressure. We need to work on creating a world where women can be accepted for who they are not what they look like, so they don't need to consider radical surgery.