The issue of bariatric surgery for adolescents rapidly generates opinion and controversy. We all have views, often judgemental, about the determinants of the obesity epidemic and how it should be managed. However, it is clear that we need effective strategies for both the primary prevention and the treatment of obesity.1 We focus in this perspective on treatment. While the mainstay of obesity treatment in adolescents involves a whole-of-family behavioural and lifestyle change, we also need additional strategies for the small number of those more seriously affected and who have failed these conventional approaches.1 As there are a rising number of reports of bariatric surgery in adolescents, and no clear guidance for practitioners available, representatives from the Australian and New Zealand Association of Paediatric Surgeons, the Obesity Surgery Society of Australia and New Zealand (OSSANZ), and the Paediatrics and Child Health Division of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians reviewed the literature, considered the issues and developed a position paper for adolescent bariatric surgery in Australia and New Zealand.
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