BariatricEating.com Health & Nutrition

Rant - Calling Dr. Rey... 90210

I love to watch TV medical shows. I don’t mean ER, or Trapper John MD (am I dating myself?); I'm talking blood and guts live surgery and medical documentaries. When I was in college I totally aced the cadaver lab portion of anatomy class. I watch Trauma: Life in the ER, Dr. 90210 and all the bizarre 'face eating tumor' shows on Discovery Health.

Last night I am watching an episode of Dr. 90210, and was enjoying the storyline featuring Natalie, an 18 year old who had gastric bypass surgery. She was the first minor who had surgery at the esteemed Cedars-Sinai. What a lovely girl and what a great face for both bariatric and plastic surgery! I smiled during the entire segment and laughed at the Rodeo drive shopping spree funded by her mom. My excitement turned to dismay during her celebratory post-shopping luncheon at a sidewalk café.

The first café shot shows poor Natalie as the only one at the table without her own food. Gosh, isn’t it a little extreme to show the gastric bypass person as the freak who doesn’t eat? Then Natalie starts drooling over her friend’s pasta salad until she forks some for herself and rolls her eyes back into her head as she eats it. Then she forks another friend’s pasta dish, putting a rather large twirl of spaghetti into her mouth. I cringe as I recall my own experiences with throwing up spaghetti. Once again Natalie squeals as she eats it, sucking in the wayward strands. Enough already, give the girl her own food!

Now we flip to the other featured body reconstruction patient. To compare and contrast, the other plastic surgery patient lost her weight 'the hard way', through diet and exercise. Dr. Rey is so proud of her! I am too, as I understand losing weight the ‘old fashioned way’. I also understand that the likelihood of keeping off over 100 pounds is practically zippo, but we don’t need to go there. We all get the point; one girl had gastric bypass surgery, hates exercise, and drools over her friend’s food, and the other girl who lost the weight 'on her own', is shown drenched in sweat, kickboxing and enjoying celery with her girlfriends. Subtle? I don’t think so.

However the part of the show that put me over the top and gave me a subject for this months rant was when the waitress set down a GIANT sandwich on an enormous roll, perched on a huge platter with French fries spilling over the sides. The camera cuts to everyone enjoying their entrees; thin girlfriends eating salads, newly thin Natalie nibbling her gargantuan sandwich, gnawing on fries and washing the whole thing down with a freakin' soda!

Can someone please volunteer to serve as some sort of advisory panel for these gastric bypass people who are on television? PLEASE stop it! We don’t want to perpetuate the myth that we can only eat two tablespoons of food, but then again we don’t want to be the cows eating the giant sandwich and fries either. I could just hear the collective sigh by the entire viewing audience of E! television as they saw what Natalie was eating. ‘No wonder she was fat’… yeah, that’s what they all thought.

What is wrong with ordering a piece of fish and some salad, surely in Beverly Hills the emaciated stick people eat grilled fish and salad. I know that there was a better choice on that menu!

Note to all gastric bypass post ops: If you are going to be on television at least make believe you eat healthy! Note to Natalie: You looked like an idiot eating that sandwich and fries. Note to Natalie’s Mom: Next time the cameras are rolling, rather than spending $1700 on a jacket, blouse, and jeans, buy your daughter a piece of fish and some salad!

Grrrrrrrrrrr…

Ciao,
Susan Maria