I Cannot BELIEVE That the FDA Approved This

A few days ago, my brother forwarded me this story from USA Today that I had to post about.  Absolutely ri-diculous.

I encourage you to read it, but for those of you who don’t get around to it, here’s the story in short.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) just approved a device that pumps food out of a person’s stomach after they finish eating.

Yes, you read right.  This so called “weight loss” device requires that the user have a tube surgically inserted into their stomachs, and that tube leads to a port that is outside of the body.  When the user finishes eating, he/she attaches an attachment to the port, opens the valve, and up to 30% of the food is pumped out of the person’s stomach and into the toilet.

This sounds an awful lot like assisted bulimia to me.  The FDA has justified their approval of the device by saying that it is not meant for people with eating disorders (which I figured), but rather, for those dealing with morbid obesity who have failed to lose weight through non-surgical methods.

This Ain’t The Answer!

One thing that I’ve noticed is that our society promotes many products that promise weight loss that you don’t have to work for.  Why?  Dolla dolla bills, y’all.

Money may not be the only reason, but I guarantee you that it has a big part to do with it.  Billions are made with these kinds of weight loss products, because producers know that we consumers don’t mind paying for something if it will reduce the amount of work we have to do.

Two Big Problems with This Device

I have a lot of problems with this device.  I want to detail what I believe are my main two issues for your consideration.

FIRST of all, it doesn’t fully consider the health of those who use the device.  One could say “why yes it does…it helps people lose weight and that makes them healthier!”

And I would say yes, that is true, but one thing that we must all remember is that there is a whole lot more to being healthy than losing weight!  That’s why thin people can get sick, too.  That’s why your weight scale might need to go in the trash.

My point is this.  What you eat matters just as much as how much you eat if you want an overall healthy body, and this device simply doesn’t consider that.

SECOND, devices like this never attack the root of the issue.  The issue might be morbid obesity, but the root of the issue isn’t simply that a person overeats.  Rather, it is that a person has a thinking pattern that leads to overeating (and eating the wrong foods).

I might sound overly spiritual with what I am about to say, but I don’t intend to.  I call such thinking patterns strongholds.  A stronghold in military terms is a fortified area which has been secured to protect it from attack.  A mental stronghold is a pattern of thinking that is so fortified and deeply rooted in the mind that it is extremely hard to destroy the thinking pattern without a huge fight.

It’s not impossible, though.

I will conclude with this.  For us who need help with excessive weight gain, we don’t need another device that offers to take the hard work away (while taking our money and putting us through risky surgeries).  We don’t need another device that requires that we get cut on and that we get foreign objects placed into our bodies.  We don’t need the “partial” deliverance.

We need folks who are going to be with us, who are going to help us overcome the mental strongholds we deal with so that we can have real weight loss victory.  And so that we can help others get it too.