While getting ready for school yesterday morning, I wandered into the living room and happened to catch an ABC news story about Brooke Bates. (I would recommend clicking on the link, as there's a video of the story on the upper right-hand side of the page). Last year, this 12-year-old girl weighed 220 pounds, and her parents gave in and allowed her to get liposuction and a tummy tuck. She lost 60 pounds, then gained half of it back and recently decided to go to Mexico to get a lap band. She had to travel out of the country because American doctors wouldn't perform the procedure on a child, and rightfully so. Now she's lost 15 pounds and is feeling like one of the "pretty, popular" people again.
WTF?! She's barely a teenager, and she's having major cosmetic surgery! What is wrong with this picture? I'm horrified, disgusted, and feeling extremely sad for this poor little girl. I can't believe her parents actually agreed to something so ridiculous. If she was eating too much, why not encourage her to eat less, or eat better food? According to the comments left by Brooke's sister on this post from Back in Skinny Jeans, Brooke couldn't do any strenuous exercising because her doctors were afraid she would have a heart attack. Seriously? Why did they wait until it got that bad to do something about it?
I think the real problem here is that this poor little girl has no self esteem. And that's not something that's going to be fixed with surgery. A weekly appointment with a counselor probably would've been a better (and more healthy) choice for her in the long run.
More links:
The story at Back in Skinny Jeans
My favorite anti-obesity spokeswoman, MeMe Roth, thinks Brooke is suffering from child abuse.
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