The Hour

With worrying trends and projections of obesity in Scotland, gastric band ops are on the increase. The Hour met up with surgeon Paul Super and ex-patient Elaine McLoughlin to discuss the surgical procedure.

The number of treatments involving gastric bands is set to increase from around 300 a year to 3000, making Scotland a “centre of excellence” for weight loss surgery.  Almost two-thirds of men and more than half of women in Scotland are overweight or obese.

Gastric banding is a surgical procedure that involves fitting a band around the upper part of your stomach that restricts the amount of food you can eat. 

Surgeon Paul Super, said to be Britain’s busiest gastric band surgeon, was born and bred in Scotland but now lives in Birmingham. He is one of 50 surgeons in the UK performing this surgery and last year performed 600 gastric band ops.

He believes that there is only one very effective way to treat obesity - surgery.

"There is no exercise which will help very obese people and there is no magic pill that can produce these effective results," he told Stephen and Kaye on The Hour sofa.

Also on the sofa was Elaine, who had gastric band surgery in November 2007.

For 22 years now, Elaine has been a carer in a hospital in Edinburgh, but in 2007 nearly lost her job because of her mobility and inability to care because of her size and health. She had tried diets and very strong slimming tablets but to little effect and was diagnosed with high blood pressure and diabetes.

 “If I didn’t get immediate help I could have died," she told The Hour.

After the surgery she went from 25 stone to 13 and a half stone, losing 11 and a half stone in total.

She said: “Before the operation I was depressed and didn’t go out at all. Now I don’t want to stay in! I have to much energy and I’m really enjoying life.”

 "I’m confident and a different person.”

There is a common perception that having a gastric band is ‘the easy way out’. This infuriates Elaine. 

She said “I was watching the TV show, Biggest Loser, and one of the people said ‘I’m working hard, not taking the easy way by getting a band fixed’. It made me so mad."

"I had tried diets all my life, slimming pills and had to starve myself just before the operation (to rest the stomach before surgery). I still have to eat sensibly now.”

Elaine is now awaiting a tummy tuck on the NHS to take her excess skin away.

Find out more about gastric band surgery here.