title: Bariatric surgery in Canada: obesity rates for Canadian adults are much higher today than in the past; however, rates of bariatric surgery, a treatment for high-risk severely obese individuals, have not risen in parallel.
abstract: Obesity rates for Canadian adults are much higher today than in the past, raising questions about how to achieve healthy weights and mitigate the associated health risks. While not a solution at the population level, bariatric surgery may be a treatment option for a relatively small proportion of obese individuals. In Canada, unlike in the United States, no consistent trend was evident in the use of this surgery between 1996-97 and 2003-04 across the five provinces for which comparable data were available. In 2003-04, bariatric surgeries were performed predominantly for women (87%); the average length of stay in hospital was 5 days; and 1.4% of patients were readmitted to hospital within 7 days of their discharge after surgery.
authors.affiliation: Health Services Research, Canadian Institute for Health Information, Toronto, Ontario.
authors.forename: Aleksandra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Jokovic
authors.forename: Jennifer
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Frood
authors.forename: Kira
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Leeb