Strictly speaking gastric bypass surgery is one specific form of weight loss surgery and the important element here is that of the 'bypass'.

Weight loss surgery comes in two basic forms:

1. Restrictive surgery, which simply restricts the quantity of food you can eat by reducing the size of the stomach.

2. Malabsorption surgery, which not only reduces the size of the stomach to reduce food intake, but also bypasses part of the intestine to reduce the number of calories which can be absorbed during digestion.

The classic Roux-En-Y procedure and the vertical sleeve gastrectomy with duodenal switch are both forms of malabsorption surgery and, as such are true examples of gastric bypass surgery.

Increasingly popular procedures such as laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding, which was licensed for use in the United States in 2001, and other forms of gastric banding are purely restrictive forms of surgery and are not strictly speaking gastric bypass surgery.

For all practical purposes however we tend nowadays to use the term gastric bypass surgery as a general term regardless of the particular form of weight loss surgery we are discussing.

As obesity continues to rise, particularly in many Western countries, and more and more people are now being classed as morbidly obese, the number of surgical weight loss procedures being undertaken is also rising fast. Indeed, even adolescents are now beginning to feature significantly in the statistics.

For this reason it is vitally important that, if you are obese, you arm yourself with as much information as you can on the subject of both obesity and obesity surgery.

Fortunately, there is a wealth of information available online and a search on your favorite engine for obesity articles or gastric bypass articles will provide you with some excellent reading.