Moira Barber, an advocate for weight loss surgery, writes about what it's like to be morbidly obese with no support from Canada's medical system:

I don't know exactly where to start or how to say it except Morbid Obesity is the last acceptable prejudice in society today.

Call a gay person a fag at your place of employment you will be written up or dismissed. Call a black person the "N" word and you will be fired. Call a morbidly obese person a fat lazy slob and everyone laughs and nothing ever gets done about that.

Ask yourself why that is?

I wasn't the fat kid in school. I was the beautiful blonde that everyone admired for my looks. I was the bully girl who made other people's lives miserable by making sure they knew they were different from me and I thought I was better than them.

I had, in fact, never walked a mile in their shoes until a few years ago. And now I truly understand the damage I have done and I am probably still doing to this day. But at least I am aware of what I have done and I am trying to make amends for the horrid things I said that scarred people for life.

I became morbidly obese after years of yo-yo dieting and after my third pregnancy. I developed thyroid disease that went undiagnosed for almost two years.

Over a four-year period I gained so much weight and couldn't understand why. I had never been a real self-indulgent over eater, or so I thought. I suffered from finish-your-plate syndrome that my mom and dad pumped into our heads as kids -- and was guilty of eating things I shouldn't -- but aren't we all?

Even so, I slowly blew up to 270+ pounds and had a BMI (Body Mass Index) of about 43 ( previous to this pregnancy I was about 140-155 pounds).

I was sick with thyroid disease. I had colitis, arthritis and general anxiety disease with panic attacks. I was an agoraphobic and hadn't left my house in nearly one year.

After much thought, I decided to undergo an Open Proximal RNY Gastric By Pass. Even though the procedure could have killed me, it was a risk I was willing to take to regain my life. And it worked.

In 14 months I lost 118 pounds, regained my self worth and self esteem, and most important, was much more healthy. I can run and play with my children, something I couldn't do before the surgery, and I probably won't die this year of a heart attack or stroke.

It's a complete lifestyle change, and while I could out-eat the surgery,l I make conscious efforts each day to keep my eating in check and exercise.

Surgery is not for everyone, but I was costing the taxpayers thousands of dollars each year in medical expenses for illnesses that were directly related to morbid obesity, and I was getting sicker by the day.

So I can't understand why government chose to cut this surgery. Morbid obesity is a disease as a result obese Canadians should have access to medical treatment.

Medicine and science have proven that genetic links to pre-dispositions are very real factors. The science also shows addiction to food, after all it is a chemical, affects the brain in the same way as heroin and alcohol.

In a twelve-step program you can learn how to avoid social situations where there alcohol around, but how do you avoid food when you need it to live?

So the next time you judge someone who's morbidly obese remember we don't consciously choose to be morbidly obese. The same way smokers don't choose to get lung cancer and alcoholics don't choose to end up with cirrhosis of the liver.