Living Life With Grace

Couple sues doctor after daughter's obesity surgery

8/14/2007 3:12 PM
By David Yates

A Louisiana couple is suing a Port Neches doctor for ignoring their child after obesity surgery.

The couple claims they brought their obese daughter in for follow-up treatment on numerous occasions after her "lap band" surgery, but the doctor never took the time to personally evaluate the young girl.

Warren and Melissa Strother allege their daughter developed pancreatitis due "to the lack of appropriate care by Dr. Felix Spiegel."

They filed their medical-malpractice lawsuit against the local doctor with the Jefferson County District Court on Aug. 13.

According to the plaintiffs' original petition, the minor child was a patient under the care of Dr. Spiegel. On June 24, 2005, the girl was admitted to the Physicians Surgery of Houston, where Dr. Spiegel performed a Laparoscopic Gastric Banding, or better known as the lap band procedure.( Read more... )

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The only comment on this article reads: "Poor kid. It's truly sad what some parents will put their kids though in order to be thin." Well-said.

Diet foods might cause kids to overeat

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The diet sodas and snacks so popular with
weight-conscious adults may backfire in children, if new animal research is
correct.

In experiments with juvenile rats, researchers at the University of
Alberta in Canada found that animals that became used to diet foods tended to
overeat during meals of regular-calorie animal chow.

This was true for normal-weight and obese rat pups, the researchers found. However, diet foods did not appear to have an overeating effect in adolescent rats.

This suggests that the foods have some unique effect in young animals, and possibly children, the study authors report in the journal Obesity.

They suspect that diet foods disrupted the young animals' ability to learn how various flavors correlate with calories. When they associate tastes, such as sweet or salty, with few calories, even a rich dessert may fail to fill them up as it otherwise would.

It's possible that children given artificially low-calorie snacks and diet sodas might not learn to properly regulate their food intake, according to lead study author Dr.
W. David Pierce.

"One thing is clear at this point," he said in a statement. "Young animals and perhaps children can be made to overeat when calorie-wise foods are offered on a daily basis, subverting the body's energy-balance system."

He and his colleagues recommend that parents give their children a
well-balanced diet of foods in their natural form, including naturally
low-calorie foods like fruits and vegetables.

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On a lighter note, here's a blog devoted to bike culture in Copenhagen, Denmark:

http://copenhagengirlsonbikes.blogspot.com/

"Social Documentary in High Heels", is one way this blog has been described. It's about bicycle culture in Copenhagen, Denmark. 35% of the population - 550,000 people - ride their bike to work or school each day. Bicycles are such an integral part
of our culture and there are many aesthetic aspects on the streets at any given moment.

Perhaps we can inspire people in other countries to commute by bicycle or
lobby for better bike conditions in their cities by providing a portrait of a
city that lives and breathes bikes.

At the very least, enjoy the view from our saddles.