Shrinking someone's stomach to the size of a walnut with surgery is one way to battle obesity and diabetes and may be lifesaving for a few, but it doesn't address the underlying causes.

Children with obesity and diabetes live harder poorer lives, they often don't finish school and earn much less than their healthy counterparts.

Placing too much emphasis on a yes/no diagnosis, meaning you either have a disease or you don't, can lead even the most well-meaning physicians to miss underlying causes and early warning signs of illness.

Recommending gastric bypass as a national solution for our diabetes epidemic is bad medicine and bad economics.

Had double chins all the way down to his stomach

Part of my training was learning how to refer patients to cardiologists for heart problems, gastroenterologists for stomach issues, and rheumatologists for joint pain. Given that most physicians were trained this way, it's no wonder that the average Medicare patient has six doctors and is on five different medications.