STRANGER THAN FICTION: DECIDING BETWEEN THE STOMACH POUCH AND THE LAP-BAND

Is it just me, or is the Discovery Health Channel having an unusual number of documentaries on obesity these days?

No wonder. They've got a ready-made audience.

Practically every female I know has flirted with this diet or that. Some of us are hard-core dieters we haven't met one we won't try. And then there's my friend Kay, who explains away her extra 10 pounds by saying she's successfully fighting anorexia.

I'm completely fascinated by these Discovery documentaries. First, they feature people even more out of control with their eating habits than I am. People who consider Spam a vegetable. People who are willing to be videotaped while being weighed and -- gasp! -- say the number aloud.

And second, those shows give me tons of ideas on how I can shed my unsightly extra pounds. I am becoming one large stretch mark. Sure, there's eating right and exercising, but who wants to do that?

It's so much better to have stomach bypass surgery like on the show!

You've probably heard of it. The doctor trims off a small piece of the top of your stomach -- about the size of your thumb -- and then attaches your small intestine to the bottom of that pouch. The rest of your stomach presumably is floating around your insides, no longer fettered by an esophagus and intestine.

Instead of eating four or five meals a day, you can handle only four or five bites at a time.

Of course, there's a downside. One doctor on the Discovery program said he'd lost three patients in 200 surgeries.

I don't like those odds.

But the folks who do it and live get amazing results. On Monday's night's Discovery obesity show, a husband and wife who had the surgery lost so much weight they were able to fit into his old jeans together. I'm talking one spouse per leg!

I'm not sure what the practical application of that feat would be, but it looked cool on TV.

And on Tuesday, the Food and Drug Administration approved the new Lap-Band Adjustable Gastric Banding System. It wasn't on Discovery, but it will be. I just know it.

Basically, the surgeon cuts a little hole in your abdomen, lassoes your stomach and cinches it, creating "an earlier feeling of fullness," an Associated Press article said. It worked well in clinical trials, during which patients were on a strict diet and had to exercise 30 minutes a day.

But there were side effects. Nausea. Vomiting. Heartburn. Abdominal pain. "Band slippage," whatever the heck that is.

The Discovery channel programs always feature some sap trying to shed pounds the old-fashioned way, by watching his caloric intake and exercising regularly. I thought they were suckers, and I was sold on the stomach bypass surgery until I learned it was $50,000.

I don't think my insurance covers it unless I'm guaranteed to drop dead of a heart attack within the week otherwise.

I don't know how much the Lap-Band will cost, but I hope not as much. I have to pay my cable bill so I can learn about all this stuff.

Heidi Hall is managing editor of the Southeast Missourian.