Teenage Waistland

Marcie Mandlebaum here: sixteen years old and sporting the collective girth of the Tenafly High cheerleading squad—this according to their captain, my twitorexic stepsister, Liselle. She’s too much of a dimwit to master the intricacies of a tape measure, but there’s no denying it. Her guesstimate is in the ballpark.

We’re crammed into a crummy conference room in the Midtown Sheraton, waiting for some Park Avenue doctor to pitch his clinical trial for Lap-Band weight loss surgery for teens. By we, I mean me; my mother, Abby; and every fat chick within a fifty-mile radius of New York City who could stand to drop
at least
one hundred pounds. A couple of fathers and maybe six fat guys are here, but it’s more a female thang—sixty or so heifers being herded around, for the most part, by tiny fat-o-phobic, lipo-sucked mothers like mine. This is
nothing
like SeaWorld, where every baby whale can count on having a bigger mama.

I haven’t seen so many fatties together in one place since
our nightmarish visit to Graceland in Memphis last summer. We spent four sweltering hours waiting in a stampede of bulging polyester just to get in. “Ground zero for the world’s obesity epidemic.” “Welcome home, Moosie,” Liselle had snickered. But rather than injecting her usual diplomacy to avert a brawl, Abby seized the reins of Liselle’s bandwagon and said, “Of course you’re not anywhere near the size of these people, darling, but your weight has been moving in the wrong direction and you need to turn it around.” But that was more than sixty pounds ago, so now Abby’s dragged me here.

Five rows of metal folding chairs have been halfheartedly arranged in front of the stage, as if the bozos setting up for the event weren’t certain this particular audience should sit in them—for me and my tubby brethren, there’s a fine line between a chair and a catastrophe. I blow past whatever few empty death traps are left and park myself in one of the open spots against the wall. Abby, hot on my trail, wiggles her way into the three centimeters of breathing space beside me by shoving one blubbery mass into another with an apologetic smile. “Standing room only,” she whispers into my ear, ignoring their glares. To Abby, who won’t eat in a restaurant that doesn’t have a waiting list for an open table, crowds—excluding the one at Graceland—provide indisputable evidence that we’re in the right place. The thing is,
we’re not
.

Finally, while the groans of stressed metal die down, Dr. Hal Weinstein, the head of the Lap-Band program at Park Avenue Bariatrics, steps to the podium and tests the microphone. This is my signal to pull out my iPod—what
don’t
I already know about this surgery? I’ve been hearing about it blow by blow for over a year. But Abby whacks my hand and flashes her eyes at me—her
behave yourself
glare. “Just listen
for a change. You might learn something,” Abby hisspers—her standard hiss/whisper combo—and I resign myself to a slow and painful death.

Weinstein leans forward, pauses, and then booms into the mike: “The Lap-Band is
not
the solution to weight loss.” My eyes fly open.
WTF?
Has the seminar been hijacked by some fanatical “fat power” fringe group and the real doctor is lying gutted in some back room? My hopes are dashed as he finishes his thought. “The Lap-Band is merely a tool, albeit an effective one if employed in a comprehensive supervised program that addresses the behavioral, nutritional, physiological, and psychological aspects of obesity.

“But as a
long-term
weight loss tool, the band is only effective if accompanied by behavioral changes. So while nutritional support and exercise are key aspects of our program, we place special emphasis on addressing the emotional issues underlying teen obesity. That’s why participation in weekly group support sessions is mandatory for the first year after the surgery.” I groan and shake my head and Abby nudges me with her elbow.

“The requirements for admission into our clinical trial are documented in your …” And then I can stand it no longer, and tune out completely.

To understand the magnitude of this disaster, you have to understand what a clinical trial is—and why, unless you have a terminal illness and nothing better to do with your time left on earth than get poked like a lab rat, it’s best to stay away from them. There’s a federal agency called the Food and Drug Administration—or FDA, to the literate few—whose job is to ensure that all food, drugs, and medical devices (like pacemakers, artificial limbs, and Liselle’s future
breast implants) sold in the United States are safe and effective. To prove “safety and effectiveness” to the FDA, companies experiment on small groups of carefully selected volunteers in tightly controlled settings.