Nutritional habits and lifestyle of patients qualified for Roux-en-Y gastric bypass and sleeve gastrectomy bariatric surgery

Introduction: Obesity is a disease affecting an increasing number of people around the world. Studies show that the diet of obese patients is qualitatively poor, which is linked to many vitamin and mineral deficiencies in this group of patients. Aim of the study: To determine whether selected elements of patients’ lifestyle contributed to the occurrence of extreme obesity among them. Material and methods: The study involved 60 patients qualified for surgical treatment. A survey related to dietary habits was conducted and anthropometric measurements were taken. For the survey used in this study the questionnaire contained questions on: socio-economic situation, health condition, presence of diseases accompanying obesity, dietary habits and physical activity. All the results were statistically analysed using the STATISTICA 12 software. Results: As many as 75% of women and 80.5% of men qualified for the two types of surgeries led a sedentary lifestyle and did not engage in any physical activity. Majority of patients ate only 2-3 meals a day at irregular intervals and snacked between meals. Approximately 1/3 of patients did not eat breakfasts and 1/5 ate meals during the night. Women most often snacked under stress and men snacked as a habit in front of the TV/computer. Conclusions: Dietary habits and a sedentary lifestyle were the main contributors to the development of obesity, along with eating to reduce stress. A consultation with a psychologist would help patients to reduce excessive body weight. KeY wOrds: bariatric surgery, obesity, feeding behaviour, sedentary lifestyle, eating disorders. address fOr cOrrespOndence: Małgorzata Szczuko, Department of Human Nutrition and Metabolomics, Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin, 24 Broniewskiego St., 71-460 Szczecin, Poland, e-mail: malgorzata.szczuko@pum.edu.pl DOI: https://doi.org/10.5114/jhi.2020.96973 IntroductIon Throughout the last decades, obesity has gained a prominent place among other non-infectious chronic diseases as a serious health problem in many countries [1]. According to data from World Health Organization (WHO), in 2014 there were more than 1.9 billion overweight adults globally, including more than 600 million obese people. A study published in 2015 [2] showed that almost half of adult Europeans (47.6%) is overweight (54.5% of men and 40.8% of women), and 12.8% (14% of men and 11.5% of women) is obese. Paradoxically, despite the fact that obesity is a preventable disease, most people live in countries where excessive weight and obesity kill more people than malnutrition – it is the fifth cause of deaths in the world. Obesity is the most common pathological state leading to significant deterioration in the health of all social groups in developed countries [3]. Obesity is characterized by increased amount of fatty tissue due to hypertrophy and/or hyperplasia of adipocytes. In people with excessive body mass, the most