Weight loss surgeries increase among youth in US
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Key takeaways:
- The AAP has supported adolescents’ access to metabolic and bariatric surgeries since 2019.
- There have been across-the-board increases in the surgeries since then.
Youth in the United States have increasingly undergone metabolic and bariatric surgery to lose weight in recent years, according to a study published in JAMA Pediatrics.
As part of its first clinical guidance on obesity in 15 years, the AAP in January suggested that physicians evaluate teens for metabolic and bariatric surgery. The authors of the new study noted that the AAP has supported the need for increased access to the surgeries since 2019.
“One of the big stories coming out of the COVID pandemic was how people gained weight, and unfortunately, the data showed that people who already had obesity gained the most, so the need for safe and effective treatment options has been a challenge,” Sarah E. Messiah, PhD, professor of epidemiology, human genetics and environmental sciences and director of the Center for Pediatric Population Health at the University of Texas Health Science Center School of Public Health, told Healio.
Messiah said the new study was a follow-up to the 2019 guidelines from the AAP that endorsed increased access to bariatric surgery for adolescents.
“It was the first time they had ever done that,” Messiah said. “We were really interested in ... the trends in surgery utilization after the release of that statement and how [the] utilization rates compare to adults.”
Although bariatric surgery is largely recognized as a treatment option, including for children, Messiah said, “access is low, especially for racial and ethnic minority groups.”
Messiah and colleagues conducted a retrospective study that examined data from the Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Accreditation and Quality Improvement Program’s participant use files from 2015 to 2021. The study included 1,346,468 youth aged 10 to 19 years and adult participants — 773,292 of them white, 227,999 of them non-Hispanic Black, 130,601 of them Hispanic and 214,576 of them individuals of other ethnicities or races.
According to the researchers, completion rates among youths increased from pre-AAP statement release through 2021, overall and for each ethnic subgroup, with 1,349 youths completing the surgery in 2021 compared with 1,135 in 2020, an 18.85% year-to-year increase.
“What the data are showing is that parents are doing what they think is best for their children, and they're moving forward with treatment,” Messiah said. “Obesity and cardiometabolic disease risk track strongly from childhood into adulthood. It's not like a light switch goes off when somebody turns 18 and all of a sudden this risk appears. If you have a treatment option that's safe and effective, and the family wants to move forward, then why would you not do that?”
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