(NewsNation) — According to a new study, people who undergo weight-loss surgery are twice as likely to get married. Of those who took part in the study, 18% of the single people were married within five years compared to the national average of 7%.
However, 8% of married people got divorced, compared to a national average of about 4%.
Study author Dr. Wendy King explained Wednesday on NewsNation’s “Banfield” that previous research showed that couples who share similar health behaviors are less likely to get divorced.
“So if surgery prompts the patient to eat better, to exercise more and adopt new habits, they may be out of sync with their partner,” King said.
It is possible for the surgery to strengthen a marriage, too, according to King, if it leads to more common habits shared between the couple.
“Those that had the greatest improvement in their physical health were the most likely to get married,” King added.
Aisha Walker, also known as the Gastric Guru, had largely “fallen out of love with life” when she opted for weight loss surgery at the age of 41. She is currently separated and awaiting divorce. She shared her story on NewsNation’s “Banfield.”
“The surgery definitely had an effect on my relationship. It had an effect on my whole life, if I’m honest. It wasn’t just my relationship with my husband. It was a relationship with my friends, as well,” Walker said.
Dating expert Bela Gandhi, the founder of Smart Dating Academy, also weighed in.
“It makes sense (with) any sort of a dramatic transformation. And having this kind of surgery, it’s not just a physical transformation. It’s an emotional transformation. It’s mental. It changes your relationship, and you transform as a human being in ways that you can’t even comprehend beforehand,” Gandhi said.
“We hear divorces go up, post-surgery, right? What an unexpected finding. But if there are control issues, abuse issues, anything negative in there, sometimes food becomes our medicine, right? We eat to try to mitigate the anxiety of that abuse. But now, once you have that physical transformation, you might think it was my weight. That was the issue all along. But really, the issues were more deeper and more profound. And now they’re fully exposed,” Gandhi added.