Surgery is no quick fix for obese teens

Health.com -- At 16, Shaina weighed 242 pounds. She also had developed a complication of obesity in which pressure builds up within the skull, damaging the optic nerve.

The only solution for Shaina, who had already started to suffer vision loss, was to lose weight -- fast.

"Even though I lost 20 pounds on my own, I needed to lose like 50 pounds," Shaina says.

A doctor recommended bariatric surgery, and Shaina had the procedure in February 2011. Three months later, she is down to 184 pounds -- the first time she can remember weighing less than 200 -- and has gone from a size 20 to a 12.

"I had to get a whole new wardrobe," she says.

More young people like Shaina, who are obese and often suffering from serious health complications, are undergoing operations to help them lose weight. While fewer than 1,000 teens have the surgery in the U.S. each year (versus 200,000 to 250,000 adults), it is becoming more common among adolescents as obesity rates continue to rise.

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