Today, death rates after weight-loss surgery are considered to be “very low,” occurring in perhaps 1 in 300 to 1 in 500 patients on average. The treatment of obesity has long been stained by the snake-oil swindling of profiteers, hustlers, and quacks. Even the modern field of bariatric medicine (derived from the Greek word baros, meaning “weight”) is pervaded by an “insidious image of sleaze.” Beguiled by advertising for fairy tale magic bullets of rapid, effortless weight loss, people blame themselves for failing to manifest the miracle or imagine themselves metabolically broken. On the other...

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