Dr. Oz is taking over Oprah's time slot on TV and kicking into motivation mode. And he's going to be pro-gastric bypass -- or at least devote some time to discussion to weight loss surgery on his show. In the LEAST -- this will open up some positive communication methods in mainstream media about OBESITY. This will be a welcome change from shows about the "easy way out," you know?
Dr. Oz plans to focus on motivation when he kicks off his third season of The Dr. Oz Show, which will take over 83 of Oprah's old time slots in the fall.
He's also the cover boy of the October issue ofPrevention magazine, hitting newsstands tomorrow, and says that he wants people to be more focused on "weight loss and better sex" along with "physical activity and sleep" for overall health.
And he has no qualms about saying he's an advocate for gastric bypass surgery, which he hopes will grow in the near future as a tool for in helping to fight obesity: "I…think gastric bypass surgery will play a big role. We probably do only 1% of the gastric bypass surgeries we should do."
He explains, "Yes. Listen, if you're one hundred pounds overweight at age fifty, you have the same mortality rate as if you have a solid cancer. Would you operate for cancer? Yeah. So if you cannot lose that weight, get one of these procedures. You have to do it with counseling and full awareness of what you're doing, of course. But if you get people to start losing 5% of their excess body weight, you're really taking a big whack out of the two-thirds of Americans."
