There’s been a lot happening in the world of bariatric surgery in Florida in just the first couple of weeks of the New Year.

A graduate student in obesity research at the University of South Florida, Barbara Hansen, has made some key breakthroughs on why some of us stay fit while some of us get fat. Hansen has been feeding a colony of rhesus monkeys the same heart-healthy diet for decades and giving them the same amount of exercise. The results? Some are thin, while others are fat, much like people.

Hansen has spent her career challenging traditional beliefs about obesity. She hates fad diets and believes that there really are genetic triggers that make some people obese rather than skinny. To her, the key is finding those triggers rather than controlling diet and exercise. Hansen also believes that bariatric surgery is one of the best methods available to control weight for the morbidly obese.

There is also the new bariatric program website at the Lee Memorial Health System. The whole point of the new website is to put as much information into a prospective patient’s hands as possible. The information doesn’t end there; it is also meant as a helpful support to patients who have had bariatric surgery somewhere else and have moved into the Tampa-Miami corridor which Lee Memorial operates out of. Lee is the fifth largest community-owned health system in the United States and they support a number of facilities across South Florida.