Postoperative Recommendations of Physical Activity

Resumen

Currently, it is widely accepted that bariatric surgery generates great benefits for patients who undergo it. This surgical intervention greatly improves the patients’ health status and has proved to be cost-effective. However, this type of surgery has several disadvantages since, after surgery, there are large reductions in fat-free mass, as well as reductions in bone mineral density, while some patients do not achieve an optimal weight loss. Likewise, in the medium and long-term after bariatric surgery, weight regain is a common problem in bariatric patients, which, in turn, can lead to a relapse in the different comorbidities related with obesity. Although the disadvantages that have been mentioned are relatively common, there are strategies that can be used with the aim of reducing or avoiding them, where physical activity and exercise are useful tools for these goals. Nowadays, several studies have emerged to clarify the effects of exercise in patients undergoing bariatric surgery, and have tried to provide adequate guidelines for exercise to be performed in this population. Therefore, this chapter will mainly focus on the postsurgery disadvantages, which can be prevented through exercise and physical activity. Thus, these drawbacks will be carefully described, in order to analyze the effects that exercise can have on bariatric patients. In turn, based on studies available in scientific literature, a series of guidelines and exercise considerations to be performed in these patients will be provided.