This article discusses the unique anesthetic implications of obesity, with an emphasis on children and adolescents. It also touches on the issues surrounding bariatric surgery in the morbidly obese adolescent population. Adolescent bariatric surgery is moving to the forefront as a treatment modality because weight-loss programs alone are not keeping pace with the growth of the problem. Bariatric surgery offers the potential to achieve the weight reductions necessary to reverse the debilitating and costly comorbidities of obesity.