What is it like to be obese? More than 2 billion people worldwide can share it with you. In addition to all the inconveniences to life, there is no doubt that obesity can lead to a range of complications or related diseases, including hypertension, coronary heart disease, asthma, sleep apnea syndrome, osteoarthritis and, especially, type 2 diabetes. Diabetes affects 41.5% of the obese population, and 65% of those with diabetes are overweight or obese. The traditional treatment of diabetes includes diet control, exercise, oral hypoglycemic drugs and insulin injection therapy. Bariatric surgery is also an effective option for obese diabetic patients. Jennifer Nagy, director of global strategic marketing at Johnson & Johnson, explains how weight loss surgery works by altering the structure of the digestive tract to affect the hormonal transmission between the stomach and the brain. Currently, bariatric surgery has been accepted by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) and the American Diabetes Association (ADA) as one of the means of treating type 2 diabetes. And according to the Chinese Guidelines for the Surgical Treatment of Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes published in 2014, the standard procedures for bariatric surgery that are now generally accepted include four types: laparoscopic gastric bypass, laparoscopic gastric sleeve resection, laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding, and biliopancreatic bypass with duodenal transposition. Diabetic patients with a BMI >27.5 and comorbidities are indications for bariatric surgery and are more effective in those who have failed dietary control and exercise therapy. Laparoscopic bariatric surgery has been performed for more than 25 years in the United States, where obesity is a common problem, and in 2014, 250,000 laparoscopic bariatric surgeries were performed nationwide, compared to less than 5,000 in China. The reason for this is, first, that most people believe that obesity is not a serious problem in China – but in fact, obesity is exploding in China. Currently, about 43.6 percent, or 600 million Chinese, are overweight or obese. Ignorance of the obesity problem often blinds patients. They do not realize the treatability of obesity, let alone gain insight into obesity treatment options, such as bariatric surgery. In the long run, a host of complications of obesity will ensue. The second reason is that patients are not fully aware of the safety and effectiveness of bariatric surgery. Jennifer Nagy says that bariatric surgery has been shown to have a lower mortality rate than other common procedures, such as cholecystectomy. In contrast to open surgery, the laparoscopes commonly used in bariatric surgery today are specially designed to ensure that they meet the surgeon’s surgical requirements while providing excellent protection for the patient’s stomach lining tissue. In addition, general surgeons generally require specialty training under the guidance of a bariatric surgeon trainer, and can also participate in specialized training from medical companies such as Johnson & Johnson, which offers 3,000 training opportunities each year to help surgeons understand bariatric surgery techniques, with approximately 100 on-site training sessions covering China, as well as additional online training courses. Regarding the efficacy of bariatric surgery, Jennifer Nagy humorously described the initial launch of bariatric surgery as a “beautiful misunderstanding”-doctors found that the surgery did not immediately treat obesity, but it did quickly control the progression of type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes progresses quickly. More than 15 years of follow-up data in Europe and the United States have shown that the average weight loss after bariatric surgery is 80% and that more than 50% of diabetic patients return to normal blood glucose levels after surgery, avoiding the need for long-term oral hypoglycemic drugs. Obesity is becoming an important public health issue in China. With the awareness of patients still not yet started, clinicians should educate patients about obesity prevention and treatment as early and timely as possible. Jennifer Nagy expects that in the next 5 years, China will pay more attention to the problem of obesity, and it is believed that more and more bariatric surgeries will be performed.