fat bellyIt changes people's lives, but the call for folks to join a weight loss support group on a friend's Facebook highlighted the big drawback to weight loss surgery:

People still think it's the easy way out.

It doesn't help that a rash of teens seeking out the surgery has further swung the public mindset on the issue. "Kids these days" love to take the easy road.

And it doesn't matter what your doctor says. There's medical fact. Then there's the court of public opinion.

Which is why a whole new weight loss surgery caught my eye. CoolSculpting isn't for the obese at all.

Despite the name, Zeltiq's CoolSculpting is the new hot way to get rid of the flab when you've got a couple extra bucks (or you, know, 3,600 of them). The fat cells are literally put into a deep freeze, which causes them to break down and disappear (over the course of a few months) in what's being touted as a safe and painless procedure.

It's not really surgery at all -- there are no incisions and apparently no healing time.

But before you start pulling out the piggy bank, a word of warning: you have to be fit to qualify for the procedure that melts fat cells away.

Wait, fit people going for fat loss surgery?

If this makes no sense to you, congratulations. 

You are one of those people who has never dealt with being at their healthiest weight and working out constantly, only to find the stubborn flab just won't go away.

I'm not there now, but I was once. After my daughter was born I got back down to fighting weight, and then watched the pooch in my tummy sit there, mocking me.

There was nothing I could do to change it save for a tummy tuck in part because this is the way my body works. I could stop eating for a month and have fat stores somewhere. Call it my German heritage -- I call it the curse of my genes.

I've joked that I'd love a little nip and tuck to fix things, but even as a once heavy girl (and currently slightly overweight girl -- darn that work-at-home job!), I have never once considered going through with it. There's a struggle between respecting the women I know who have gone through with it and feeling like a weakling.

Now there's a weight loss surgery for thin people.

You have to be within 10 to 15 pounds of your ideal body weight (which is just about me -- I'm 15 above at the moment ... maybe closer to 20) for CoolSculpting and have "noticeable bulges or bumps" (again, me).

You can't be failing anything to have this done if you're supposed to be thin already, right?

Is this finally a socially acceptable weight loss surgery?

 

Image via meddygarnet/Flickr