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Bariatrics is a term used to describe the branch of medicine which relates to the causes, prevention and treatment of obesity. The term came into use in the mid 1960's. This field of medicine offers its services to a widening population as weight-related health issues continue to rise.

Bariatrics employs dieting and exercise to address the problem but includes more drastic approaches including surgery and pharmacotherapy (using drugs as treatment). The treatment given depends mainly on the individual's situation as diagnosed by health professionals.

The Body Mass Index, or BMI as commonly abbreviated, is the most commonly used tool for diagnosis of weight problems. BMI's are calculated using a formula based off of height and weight and while promoted as a viable means of calculating body fat, they are not perfect. Those individuals with BMI's out of the healthy range are those that qualify for certain types of treatment, surgery being limited to those with a BMI of 40 or higher.

A BMI of 40 or higher indicates severe obesity while anything between 30 and forty indicates regular obesity. These numbers help doctors determine whether or not a person could qualify for surgery. Normally, only those with a BMI greater than 40 qualify for surgery. However, those with BMI's between 35 and 39.9 who are also diagnosed with an exacerbating condition like type two diabetes may also be qualified for bariatric surgery. Those interested in surgery ought to keep a few things in mind:

First of all, bariatric surgery comes with baggage: recovery time and careful self-monitoring in order to detect side effects of surgery. Some side effects observed include vomiting, diarrhea, dysphagia (difficulty in swallowing, though not painful), reflux, abdominal hernia, leaking at the surgical connections between stomach and intestine, and finally infections of various types (likely causing inflammation/irritation around the site of surgery).

Also, while not likely, death on the operating table for bariatric surgery is not unheard of (there's a 0.2% mortality rate, or two in every one thousand people die during surgery). Bariatric surgery occurs in three varieties.

The first has to do with malapsorbtion, however this type of surgery is rare. Perhaps the most common type is restrictive surgery where the size of the stomach is manipulated to make consumption of large amount of food physically impossible for the patient. The third type is a combination of the first two.

One example of this last type of surgery is gastric bypass surgery where the stomach is divided in two and the small intestine is rearranged so both resulting pouches are connected to it.