Roseanne Barr Gastric Band
Roseanne Barr was born in Utah in 1952 and grew up feeling like an outsider in the community she was in. In 1998, Roseanne underwent gastric bypass surgery although ended up regaining much of the weight she lost. At 5'4" and weighing over 15 stone, Roseanne is still overweight although she seems to have accepted the way she is.
Early Days
Roseanne was born the eldest of four children, to a working class Jewish family in Utah. She was not a particularly overweight child, although she claims that during her childhood she was abused by her father. This is what she says led to her weight problems as an adult. After she had married her first husband and through her second and third pregnancies, Roseanne began to gain weight, weighing 26 stone at her heaviest. Roseanne seems to have had problems with her weight ever since she can remember. She says that even when she was a US size 4 she would compare herself to everyone around her; and if she started to feel depressed with the way she looked she would gorge herself on junk food.
The Operation
In the late 1990's, unhappy with her increasing weight problem Roseanne decided to take a drastic option and decided to opt for weight loss surgery. In March, 1998 Roseanne had a gastric bypass operation which involved having a section of her stomach stapled to decrease its size. In addition to this a section of her small intestine was then cut away and reattached to her stomach. This effectively allowed food to bypass much of the small intestine and therefore meant Roseanne would absorb fewer calories. The operation was performed under general anaesthetic and Roseanne was out of hospital within three days.
Present Day
Roseanne waited eight months after surgery before telling anyone her weight loss was down to a gastric bypass operation. The comedienne who once weighed 26 stone lost over half of her weight to become 12 stone. However Roseanne managed to gain much of the weight she lost after surgery and now accepts she will never be slim. Roseanne joked "my stomach is the size of a walnut, yet I still gorge. I'm still fat and always will be. I don't care".
Despite the gastric bypass surgery, Roseanne does not think being fat is a negative thing. She says she feels sexy being fat, and it also makes her feel like she is seen and heard more easily. Roseanne also believes that women's magazines have a lot to answer for in the obesity epidemic. She claims that the cover on a magazine does not concur with the writing inside which confuses people and can lead to bipolar disorder. The pills used to help with bipolar she says cause weight gain. Roseanne still does not talk much about her surgery.
