Hmmm. Which is worse – a lover with Dunlap’s Disease or one who laps it up?
Strange though it sounds, that – drinking alcohol to excess or being so big that your belly “done lapped” over your belt – could be the Hobson’s choice men and women may have to make when it comes to the most popular weight-loss surgery.
Wahtchu talkin’ ’bout, Willis?
A recent study published online by the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that people who have gastric bypass surgery lose weight, true enough, but they are twice as likely to abuse booze afterwards as people who opt for other types of weight-loss surgery.
Yikes. Without getting too scientific about it, gastric bypass surgery shrinks the size of your stomach and limits both food intake and the body’s ability to process calories. Researchers of the Chicago study think it also changes its ability to process hooch. So, if before having the surgery you could put away five highballs and a 12-pack and still remember the names of all Three Stooges, after surgery one or two drinks might have you stumbling around with a lampshade on your head singing “Thank God I’m a Country Boy” to a coat rack.
Not that I ever did that – more than once.
Dr. Allen Mask, who has a private practice in Raleigh and is the TV doctor on WRAL News, said that after initial skepticism, many doctors such as he “have come full circle” regarding bariatric surgeries to lose weight and now support it. “I see patients all the time who are morbidly overweight — that’s 100 pounds or more over their ideal weight — and I tell them that all of their parameters will improve” after the surgery. “Their blood pressure, diabetes, cholesterol — everything will get better.”
The one thing that doesn’t improve, according to the study, is the body’s ability to handle booze — although another theory contends that formerly fat people suddenly pursue a more active social life after losing weight and may actually drink more when they go out tripping the light fantastic. Who wouldn’t, after years of sitting alone at home surrounded by Pringles, Yoo-Hoos and Moon Pies?
Wouldn’t you think that after such a solitary and sedentary existence, they’d want to be fully awake to experience everything they’d missed, not blacked out in a corner while friends take unflattering pictures of them to post online?
Speaking of excess, another study, this one in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, claimed a relationship between obesity and religion. I couldn’t reach Purdue University Sociology professor Ken Ferraro last week, but he previously wrote that his study found the link between fat and faith was more prevalent in some denominations than in others. Yes, we Baptists were right up there.
In other words, as one headline writer said, the only plate some churchgoers pass is the collection plate. Ouch.
As if we didn’t already know that going to church puts weight on you. To which I say “Thank God for that.”
As perpetually broke college students, some of my buddies and I used to attend church — sorry, Rev. Gilchrist — as much to feed our empty bellies as to feed our souls. We sometimes based attendance on which ones were celebrating an anniversary after service or which ones put out the best spread.
That unproud tradition still exists. Go to church — especially on New Year’s Eve at what’s called a “watch service” when people ring in the new year singing, praying and praising — and you’ll see some people slide into the pews minutes before midnight. Look in their eyes and you can see an unmistakable hunger — although you don’t know if it’s for the word or bacon.
barry.saunders@newsobserver.com or 919-836-2811
