Lipo at 13? WTF?!

There are 13 year olds out there vying for liposuction, tummy tucks, and gastric bypass. If I think back hard enough, I probably would have enjoyed the idea of a little liposuction on my thighs, possibly the hips at that age. Hell, I also would have taped my breasts down if I had thought of it. I'm sure based on peer pressure, poor self-image and the litany of other teenage emotional maladies that plagues american girls that plastics would be a welcome device. However; the trouble that draws my focus today is that I am reading that these things are actually happening. There are actually doctors perfectly willing to comply if the money is there.

As for breast implants, nose jobs, and the like, those are for another day; but TLC had a special on especially young obese people, and articles I've read regarding a very young teenager in Texas who had lipo, and then followed it with banding when she re-gained the weight. Don't even get me started on the Mexican doctors who don't care if you have a 30 BMI to start out and will carve you up anyway.

I remember the exact moment in time when food became a problem for me. I was a skinny kid- a tomboy...a girl climbing trees and the only girl at my catholic school welcome to play kickball with the boys (which worked well for me because my crush was always the pitcher). When I was 12 my Mom came out to us as a lesbian, we moved away from my hometown and friends, and my sister departed for adventure in multiple scenic homes for problem children all in the span of three months. Jesus, what a cocktail for kiddy suicide.

When we got to our new home, I weighed 83 pounds at a height not too different from what I am now. Puberty hit, and I have no doubt that attributed to a little weight gain...hips and breasts will do that, but by the end of eighth grade I was up to 115 lbs. Still a size 2, but not making any friends in the human form at our new digs, I found them in the shape of Elio's pizza and macaroni and cheese. I remember learning to hear the exact motor sound of my mom's partner's truck, so that I knew when I'd have to run to the kitchen and toss away whatever food was left in front of me. How fucked up is that? Another move, and the awkwardness of high school at my feet, I put on more weight, upping it to somewhere in the 150 range until I was the perfect size 14 (so sayeth the Caldor pants Mom bought for the new school year round about junior year).

I also continued to make friends, not at school, but in the kitchen. I learned how to hide exactly how much I was eating and the fine art of binging. Mom was decidedly no help in this department. I don't blame her, but verging on 300 lbs herself and more in tune with other things than dieting (or denial- take your pick), it never occurred to her to figure out why I was getting so big. I finished high school near 160, managed to take it all back off in the first year college; and then played the roller coaster of gain and loss, loss and gain, and mostly gain for the next ten years.

It took me years to come to the decision of putting a band around my stomach. I'm hitting 30 in less than a month, and I still have vast concerns about the idea of plastic surgery. I was a mature kid. I had more adult friends as a teenager than any my own age. I read Shakespeare and Plato with intense earnest while others my age were more likely to hit the arcade after school. STILL, I can't imagine on my best day I would have had the emotional maturity to make such a decision. Even if I had, my mother would have nixed me at the gate. NO WAY in hell, she would have said; and I would have tromped back to my room slamming the door for good measure. (Adolescent obnoxiousness did not pass me by entirely)

These kids are asking for, and getting advanced medical procedures at 13, 14, and 16. Still very young, and naive, they feel impenetrable and have no concept of informed consent. Worst of all, perhaps, many seem to see surgery as a quick fix (I speak of course to bands and bypass- not lipo, which in some ways is a quick fix).

On the one hand, I can see the optimistic side...save a kid who is pre-genetically disposed to obesity a lifetime of self-hate, loathing, social isoation and misery. On the other hand; it appears the ones to take the most advantage of this are the permissive parents who let their kids eat anything, sit on the asses all day eating twinkies and playing XBox and then trot them off to the surgeon to take care of the problem they helped create.

This is an altogether frightening proposition.