According to The British Obesity Surgery Patients Association they are aware of some obese people actually deliberately putting on extra weight so that they reach the threshold for qualifying for obesity surgery. These people are especially likely to qualify for the surgery if they suffer either from diabetes or from high blood pressure. The most popular type of surgery for obese people is stomach stapling that shrinks the stomach so that people are unable to eat as much as they used to.

The rules clearly say that if you have a BMI of 35+ and some sort of obesity related illness you can have this stomach stapling done on the NHS and so those people who have a BMI of say 33 or 34 are deliberately putting on extra weight in order to qualify.

However in some cases hospital are unable to meet the demand for these operations and so have increased the BMI threshold to 45, which means that depending on where you live you will, or will not get this surgery done for free on the NHS.

The operations for stomach stapling or another operation called lap banding cost around £10,000 each and are only deemed necessary if the patient has been unable to lose weight in any other way and if the patients size and obesity is potentially damaging to their health.

In America where thousands of people have the operation every year the procedure is said to save many lives however like all surgery their is a significant risk of death when under anesthetic, as much as 1% in some places.

An obese person is likely to have a bad heart and high blood pressure that puts them in a higher risk bracket for all types of surgery. After the operation a carefully controlled diet is needed to keep the patients healthy and some patients have great difficulty adjusting to their new diets.