Operations on obese teenagers becoming common, UAE doctors say

Doctors say weight-loss operations are reserved for extremely obese children who had tried diet and exercise programmes but failed to lose weight.

Reducing fatty food would prevent many procedures being carried out on obese teens, experts say. Fatima Al Marzouqi / The National

ABU DHABI // Radical weight-loss operations on children are becoming routine in the fight against the obesity epidemic.

Doctors said weight-loss surgery was reserved for extremely obese children who had tried diet and exercise programmes but failed to lose weight.

Dr Girish Juneja, director of the bariatric centre at Dubai’s Al Zahra Hospital, said he regularly operated on teenagers.

“We are routinely operating on teenagers 15 and above,” Dr Juneja said. “Below the age of 15 we do it on a case-by-case basis.”

He said his youngest patient was a 13-year-old who weighed about 150 kilograms and needed gastric bypass surgery.

Dr Juneja said he avoided gastric band surgery for children because the operation was more intrusive and could involve complications.

As a last resort he uses a gastric sleeve procedure, where a portion of the stomach is removed, or an operation where a small pouch is attached to the intestine, bypassing the stomach.

Dr Tamer Saafan, of NMC Specialty Hospital in Al Ain, said doctors there received several requests a month from concerned parents for bariatric surgery on children.

“The families usually ask for us to consider surgery as a solution,” Dr Saafan said.

He said he would never operate on a child younger than 13, but he knew of a case in Saudi Arabia where a seven-year-old had bariatric surgery.

Not all obese teenagers were eligible for surgery, Dr Saafan said. Those eligible were often at risk of severe health problems such as sleep apnoea, Type 2 diabetes and fatty liver disease.

He said surgery could have many positive effects. Apart from health benefits, overweight children could be bullied by their peers and suffer other psychological problems such as depression and low self-esteem.

Dr Saafan said success of bariatric surgery varied depending on the type of operation and the efforts of patients, who could expect to lose about 50 to 60 per cent of their excess body weight after the operation.

But he said increasing exercise and reducing fatty food would prevent many procedures.

“These are the key issues that lead to obesity – not just in the Gulf but all over the world.”

Dr Hanan Tosson, a consultant in paediatric endocrinology at Al Noor Hospital in Abu Dhabi, said three out of every 10 children she saw were overweight or obese, and one was a 10-year-old who weighed 90kg.

“I don’t feel comfortable exposing a patient to surgery,” she said. “I advocate changing lifestyles and I haven’t failed yet.”

The Centre for Strategic Health and Development said a recent survey of 4,000 children aged 6 to 16 in Arab countries found 25 per cent were overweight or obese.

And a study by specialists at UAE University of 29,410 children aged between 3 and 18 in 2014-2015 found 40 per cent were overweight, 24.4 per cent obese and 5.7 per cent extremely obese.