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Abstract Population studies in the last few decades have demonstrated a dramatic and progressive increase in the proportion of obese adolescents. In 2012, the prevalence of obesity in the United States was 16.9% in adolescents and 34.9% in adults. Obesity in adolescents is associated with co-morbidities such as hypertension, diabetes mellitus, dyslipidemia, osteoarticular disease, fatty liver disease, obstructive sleep apnea, and premature cardiovascular disease. Obese children and adolescents have a 25% greater risk of progression to adult obesity and a twofold increase in the risk of mortality as early as the fourth decade of life with resolution of this risk if the obesity controlled before the adult age. Medical treatment of adolescent obesity, including dietary control, physical activity, and pharmacological management, has shown limited success. With the increasing popularity of bariatric surgery in the last two decades, the outcomes of these procedures in the adolescent population are gaining interest, but long-term data are still limited. Laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (LSG) has become the most popular bariatric operation worldwide and its application has been extended to treating children and adolescents with obesity. Despite existing concerns of the effect of bariatric surgery on normal growth and sexual development in prepubertal children, a recent matched control study by Alqahtani et al. not only showed that LSG is safe and effective in this age group but also demonstrated that obese children undergoing LSG grew taller compared to their non-surgical counterparts. |