The fancy name for a Lap Band is Laparoscopic Adjustable Gastric Band.
On the radio ad a cheerful young thing answers the question asking if she is happy she had the procedure done. "Am I happy? Just look at me," she says. Implying that now she is a svelte, beautiful thing.
The Lap Band ad with the svelte, beautiful thing also mentions that the procedure only costs $9.999. And that they will work with your medical insurance to get the procedure covered. That is one buck shy of 10 thousand to get a band stuck on your stomach to shrink its usable area from around 6 cups to around 1 cup.
You have to have a Body Mass Index above 40, or be more than 100 pounds over your ideal weight and between 18 and 55 years old, to qualify for this bizarre procedure. There are some exceptions.
I have actually only known two people who would qualify for the Lap Band procedure, morbidly obese-wise, but, sadly, disqualified, due to being too old, age-wise.
Up close observing the feeding patterns of these 2 morbidly obese people it is very easy to see why they are so big. No restraint. Nutritional imbeciles. Lazy.
For $10,000 would it not make more sense to check yourself into a Fat Farm for some intensive tough love and living lessons, like what happens on NBC's Biggest Loser?
It takes 3,500 calories to create a pound of fat. For every 3,500 calories beyond your caloric needs you are going to put on a pound.
How much do all those pounds cost, I can't help but wonder? $100 per 10 pounds gained? I know the cost would vary by what you are eating to make up those extra calories. Some obese people are larded up with very expensive fat, while others create their girth with too many refried beans.
The two morbidly obese people, who's feeding habits I have observed, would likely skew to the expensive end of the cost of all that stored fat. I'm guessing maybe $1,000 per every 100 extra pounds.
I estimate the ideal weight of the female fat feeder that I have observed to be, maybe, 140 pounds. The last I observed this person, in person, I estimated the weight total was likely somewhere in the 500-600 pound range. The size has likely had a substantial increase since then. So, that is several thousands of dollars worth of blubber stored up
I'm thinking if I had so little self control that I blimped up to elephantine proportions, rather than get my stomach operated on, I would simply stop eating and live off of all that stored blubber til it was all gone. That just seems simpler, more common sensical and easier. Not to mention way cheaper. You'd be saving the $9,999 surgery cost, plus the cost of all that food you've stopped eating.
There are some dire possible side effects to Lap Band surgery. You can read about them in the Wikipedia article about "Adjustable Gastric Band."
