News

Surgery Not A Magic Cure For Obesity

Published: 8 April 2014

It is alarming, but obesity has reached epidemic proportions in Kuwait. Oil has not only brought great wealth to the Gulf, but a huge change in lifestyle and food habits. Fast food, fast cars and everything else that money can buy has led to the rise of obesity so much so that today at least 88 percent of Kuwaitis are considered overweight. 

... Dr Salman Al Sabah (IMHL'08), Director of Surgical Research and Academic program in the Department of Surgery, and Consultant Surgeon at Al Amiri Hospital and Royal Hayat Hospital blames this growing rate of obesity on lifestyle changes combined with a genetic predisposition among the locals to gain weight. “In 2012, at least 6,000 people in Kuwait underwent bariatric surgery and a paper published on Obesity Surgery in 2013 reported that Kuwait has the highest numbers of operations performed as a percentage of the national population,” he observes.

Read full article: Arab Times, April 7, 2014

Back to top