Overweight has reached epidemic proportions, particularly in the United States where two-thirds of the population is overweight and one-third of the population is severely overweight, or obese. Given the sheer number of overweight people, not to mention the detrimental effects of being overweight, it's expected that various solutions to losing weight would be available, and that is in fact the case. One particular weight loss method that's gotten a good deal of notoriety is a surgical solution known as gastric bypass.

Gastric bypass occurs through making the stomach smaller and by allowing food to bypass part of the small intestine. The end result of gastric bypass is a sensation of feeling physically full sooner after eating than is typical, with fewer calories consumed. The reduced role of the small intestine in the digestive process also causes fewer calories to be absorbed.

The gastric bypass method involves dividing the stomach, literally, into two sections, with one stomach section bigger than the other. Food comes into contact with this reduced section of stomach first: because this initial section of stomach is so much smaller, it gives off signals of being full with a small amount of food intake. Though all procedures that alter the stomach for purposes of weight loss are referred to as gastric bypass, there are variations in the procedure. The most commonly performed gastric bypass is Gastric bypass, Roux en-Y (proximal). As the name suggests, Gastric bypass, Roux en-Y (proximal) is a complicated procedure, but what it basically serves to do is alter the small intestine and produce a feeling of fullness in the patient soon after eating.

Gastric bypass, in a genuine sense, is an emergency method. Gastric bypass surgery is performed only on people who are obese. Gastric bypass as well is typically performed only on people who've been obese for five years or more. These sorts of individuals could reasonably be considered high health risks due to obesity, and for them gastric bypass could very well be a life extending procedure. Gastric bypass is never performed as a cosmetic procedure for improving body image, as is the case with liposuction for instance. Gastric bypass is also often considered a last resort type of procedure and will often not be performed until other attempts at weight loss have been documented to have failed. The typical time frame for sufficient recovery to occur following the gastric bypass procedure is roughly five weeks.