- Alayna Morgan: [bedridden at 525 pounds] If I were you, if I was 50 pounds overweight, I'd go running and screaming to a gym as fast as I could, and I would do everything, I would take my kids on walks every day, and I would play with them every day, and I would turn that God forsaken TV off, and I would start living life to the fullest. And never believe that evil little person that says in your ear that 'I'll start my diet tomorrow'. When you hear that voice come in your head 'I'll start my diet tomorrow', believe me, that person's out to kill you.
- Himself - Presenter: This is a diabetic medication. We've got a blood pressure pill here. And this is an antacid tablet.
- Betsy: I constantly have heartburn, indigestion.
- Himself - Presenter: Very strong painkiller here.
- Betsy: I take it 3 times a day for the pain in my knees, my legs and my back.
- Himself - Presenter: When you're carrying a lot of weight around, it's sort of grinding away on these joints. What about you, Laura? Do you have aches and pains?
- Laura: I've got back pain and knee pain.
- Himself - Presenter: You're just the same then.
- Betsy: I have a vitamin D deficiency, I'm severely anemic, I have a thinning wall in my heart.
- Himself - Presenter: Cholesterol pills, to avoid heart disease obviously. And then you have aspirin as well, so this is a blood thinner to help prevent clots; again, if you're overweight, the risk of blood clots is quite high.
- [later]
- Himself - Presenter: And you're not on lots of medications, are you?
- Laura: I'm not on anything.
- Himself - Presenter: You're not on anything.
- [to Betsy]
- Himself - Presenter: But I'll bet that's what you said 10 years ago, didn't you?
- Betsy: Five.
- Himself - Presenter: Five years ago you could've said that. So you see how quickly and suddenly it hits you, but this is all preventable, this doesn't have to happen to you at all.
- Julie: [US supersizer] My name is Julie, I'm from Spin, North Carolina, and I weigh 29 stone. When I was 21 years old I started to have a problem with food, I was in a bad marriage at the time and when we finally got divorced, I internalized a lot of emotions that I covered by eating. I was a food addict, when I was happy, I ate, when I was sad, I ate, and it was an emotional outlet. My obesity impacts every part of my life. I have a 6 year old and he wants me to come outside and play with him, and I have a chair out in the yard that I sit in because I can only stand for a short amount of time. It really makes me feel sometimes like a waste of space. If I get real about it, I have no life like this. I get lesions on my skin where it rubs together, boils, it's painful. When my husband and I are intimate together, I don't feel attractive, I don't feel sexy. And even when my husband says 'I love you, you're beautiful to me', I don't believe it. I have to be honest and say 'I feel gross'. It's just depressing, I want to be feminine and I can't. I wish I knew then what I know now, because my entire life would've been different. Amy, you're 21 years old, you have your whole life ahead of you, don't let your life get out of control like I did, if you don't take care of it now, when you're 40, this is going to be you. And you don't want to be here, honey, it's like a living hell. And I want you to have the happy life that you deserve, I want your children to have a mommy that can play with them outside. I want your husband to have a wife that isn't afraid to love him. Take care of it now and don't let it get to this point, because once you get here, it's awfully hard to change.
- Himself - Presenter: I want to really show you why it's so important that you change your eating habits, okay, because actually it WILL lead to disease and it will lead to ill health and I'm going to talk to you about some of those things. You know what that is?
- Joanne: No.
- Keith: No I don't.
- Himself - Presenter: That's a cataract, you've heard of cataracts?
- Keith, Joanne: Yeah.
- Himself - Presenter: This person is probably completely blind. And they're completely blind because of deficient of vitamin A. Vitamin A you get from fish, butter, it's added into dairy products, to yogurts. Not getting enough of it can affect your eyes, does that shock you?
- Keith, Joanne: Yeah.
- Himself - Presenter: Did you know that poor diets can do something as dramatic as that?
- Keith, Joanne: No.
- Himself - Presenter: Because patients here are getting bigger and bigger, regular ambulances can no longer cope to transport them, so the hospitals have had to call in the services of these new super sized ambulance to transport their obese and super obese patients.
- Narrator: This bariatric ambulance or 'jumbolance' is 1 1/2 times bigger than a normal American ambulance, costs a quarter of a million dollars, and can cope with patients weighing up to 100 stone. In the UK, a standard ambulance can only cope with patients who weigh up to 30 stone, but bariatric vehicles are already hitting the streets across the country. The West Midlands have added 4 to their fleet, and in London there's already a privately run service, as well as 2 NHS jumbolances with a 3rd on the way.
- Himself - Presenter: Taiwanna is only 48, which in medical terms is very young, and for me the really sad part is the fact that all of this could've been prevented if Taiwanna had only managed her weight and her diabetes better early on, but now there's no going back.
- Narrator: In the UK diabetes is already the most common cause of non traumatic amputation, and the annual cost of diabetes related amputation stands at a staggering 120 million pounds. If Britain's waistlines continue to grow and cases of Type 2 diabetes continue to rise, the problem is only going to get worse.
- Betsy: [at 540 pounds] It's difficult, I have to find a hospital that can suit my size, in fact they've actually talked about resorting to have to go to the local zoo to be able to use the equipment.
- Himself - Presenter: They were serious?
- Betsy: They were *very* serious.
- Superskinny Amy: What would compel you to eat this now then?
- Supersize Amy: Um, it was there.
- Superskinny Amy: I can't believe how much food I've eaten, it's ridiculous.
- Narrator: Amy may be struggling with the amount of food on her plate, but she's already feeling the benefits of swapping a liquid lunch with something more hardy.
- Superskinny Amy: I feel I have quite a lot of energy surprisingly because I usually get all my energy from my cola, and having my cola taken away from me, I did think I was going to be very lethargic and tired, and exhausted, but I'm feeling okay.
- Narrator: Charlene should be eating 2,000 calories a day, but her tiny portions mean she's consuming only 1,400, which is the recommended amount for a 4-6 year old girl.
- Narrator: Over a year, meat maniac Dawn is wolfing down 208 whole chickens, 1716 rashers of bacon, 3800 sausages, 36,000 slices of deli meat, and 36 kilos of minced beef. This meat laden diet means she's consuming 1,000% more than the recommended amount of protein, which could lead to heart disease, kidney damage, osteoporosis, and several kinds of cancer.
- Narrator: Britain's getting bigger, by 2030 it's predicted a fat 40% of us will be obese. But across the pond, one town is almost there. Evansville, Indiana, is America's fattest city. 37.8% of its population are obese. Dr. Christian's been witnessing the devastation it's causing, to make darn sure us Brits don't follow suit.
- Hospital worker: The heaviest patient I've lifted is 765 pounds.
- Himself - Presenter: Wow, well over 50 stone then.
- Himself - Presenter: Josh, we're going to start with you, and we're going to start with your breakfast.
- [cigarettes come down the feeding tube]
- Himself - Presenter: You are kidding me! Do you always start the morning with a fag, do you?
- Josh: It's one of the best ones of the day.
- Himself - Presenter: Sorry, Louise, I do apologize. Bare in mind I'm not going to make you smoke the fags.
- [to Josh]
- Himself - Presenter: Let's look at your actual breakfast, what you actually eat.
- [nothing comes down the tube, he taps it]
- Josh: I don't eat breakfast.
- Himself - Presenter: So by lunchtime you're obviously quite peckish.
- [more cigarettes fall down the tube]
- Narrator: Or maybe not.
- Himself - Presenter: How often do you tend to eat lunch in a week?
- Josh: Maybe 3 times a week, something like that.
- Himself - Presenter: [a burger falls] Fast food, a cup of soup, this all says to me 'I don't really want to cook anything'.
- Himself - Presenter: [to Josh] The only bit of fresh fruit or veg that you had in the entire week was the little bit of limp lettuce in the fajita, that's it. You are essentially starving.
- Narrator: We're only at breakfast, and already Louise's tube is level with Josh's entire week worth of food.
- Himself - Presenter: So this is my gallery, gallery that's very specific to you. Come look at this picture here. What's going on there?
- Josh: It looks like alopecia, hair loss.
- Himself - Presenter: Hair is protein. Protein is very important to the body for building muscles, maintaining, regenerating, repairing, if you're not getting enough of it in your diet, what is the point of your body wasting protein to grow hair? Come over look at this picture next. What do we think here?
- Josh: Bad teeth.
- Himself - Presenter: You've heard of scurvy, it's something that sailors got, because they used to live off of very limited diet with very little fresh fruit and vegetables. Gums bleed, they swell, teeth fall out, they get very poor, you get horrible sores on your body, your skin becomes very dry and crusted. Deficiency of vitamin C leads to scurvy, *you're* deficient in vitamin C, but there's an added issue with you. Smokers' requirements of vitamin C are about double nonsmokers' requirements. What's that?
- Josh: A heart I think.
- Himself - Presenter: Can you see these parts here? They're blackened. That heart muscle has been deprived of oxygen and has died. That person died of a heart attack. It's a complete myth that only fat people have cholesterol deposits, blocked arteries and get heart attacks. Super skinny people are *just* as much at risk.
- Narrator: Heart disease is the UK's biggest killer, responsible for a quarter of premature deaths in men. At risk are the 60% who don't eat their 5 a day, and smokers, who are twice as likely to have a heart attack. Guilty of both, Josh could be heading for an early grave.
- Josh: If I keep going the way I'm going, I'm going to lose all my hair, my teeth and eventually my life. Shit.
- Karen Ferguson: My name is Karen Ferguson, I'm 56 years old, and I'm 41 stone. Food means everything to me, but it's also been a curse to me. It has gotten me into a nursing rehabilitation home. Because I can't go to the restroom on my own, I have to wear a diaper all the time, someone changes it several times a day. I can't even reach to wipe myself, I have to get other people to do tha for me. Because of my size, I hold a lot of moisture under where you're big, so under your breasts, under your belly, it causes yeast infections, it gets real red and inflamed and burns and itches and has an odor to it. I have high blood pressure and diabetes and pulmonary artery disease. The majority of my weight did come on from an abusive relationship. He would tell me how ugly I was and how stupid I was and that nobody else would have me, nobody would want me, and I believed it. I got a lot of comfort out of the foods I was eating. It was like very aggressive eating. At 42 I was on my way to work and had a heart attack. My children are growing up withou tme, and I have a lot of grandchildren and they're all ages, and I don't know if I'm going to be able to get out of this wheelchair and go back home. I have no idea what's going to happen. Louise, I understand you're going through what I've been going through for years, but you've got a little boy to think about, and you've got a life that's valuable. Start getting this weight off now before it's too late.
- Mike: I'm Mike, I'm 32 stone and I'm 54 years old. I started overeating when I was a child. I felt like when my parents punished me, the comfort was to eat. As I grew older in my life, I ordered pizza, and it ended up being 2 pizzas. When I got into law enforcement I got to working late nights, I would eat to stay awake: cookies and doughnuts and crackers, the stuff that makes you fat. The day I had an accident, I had driven over 200 miles and I fell asleep, and the state trooper figured I drove for 2 miles sound asleep, that caused a big accident. And they took me to the hospital and had me do testing, and found out I have sleep apnea, which is due mainly to my obesity. When I went on scales at the hospital, I thought I weighed 40 stone, and I realized then that I weighed 53 stone. They put me on a CPAP with the oxygenator set on the highest levels because I was the worst case they'd ever seen. It made me feel sad, my dad died at 62 and I want to live more than 62 years old.
- Himself - Presenter: [at the Women's Hospital] They deliver 750 babies every month here, around half of the expectant mothers are obese. That means complications to both mother and baby, including high birth weight babies, high blood pressure, gestational diabetes, and DVT.
- Holly Murphy: [485 pounds] I kept eating everything I wanted to eat: big steaks, fried chicken, 'it'll be alright, I'll eat this whole box of cookies and I'll go do something tomorrow and work it off', which never happened. Which never happened, ever, ever.
- Jeff Mitchell: My name is Jeff Mitchell, I'm 50 years old, I weigh 40 stone and 8 pounds. I liken my problem eating disorder to an addiction to heroin. It takes over your mind, it takes over your body, and it takes control of your life.
- Narrator: Years of comfort eating and extreme weight gain mean that until recently, he'd been bedbound for 3 years.
- Jeff Mitchell: I might as well be in a jail cell somewhere that somebody threw away the key because there's so little you can do.
- Narrator: The only journeys he's made in recent years have been in an ambulance. Jeff suffered renal failure, pneumonia, lymphedema, chronic bronchitis and heart problems.
- Jeff Mitchell: I'm not the person I used to be. When my wife met me I could walk these mountains and climb these hills.
- Narrator: Father to Jed, Jeff put on so much weight that his wife, Sherrie, had to give up her job to become a fulltime carer.
- Narrator: At 40 stone, Jeff has a catalogue of severe health problems.
- Jeff Mitchell: My kidneys failed on me about 2 years ago. It was one of the worst nights in my life, and I was told if I wasn't given medicine, and I didn't start pushing some of that fluid out, that I would die, that I was in renal failure. Sepsis took over, and that's when the infection in my leg got into my bloodstream. The surgeons came in and they marked on my leg, they were going to cut my leg off, just to try and save my life. And on the third day, my body responded to the antibiotics.
- Jeff Mitchell: [568 pounds] This is absolutely one of the worst ways to live your life, because you take your family with you.
- [breaks down]
- Jeff Mitchell: They don't get to go out and live a real life. I can't take my son to a baseball game. It's horrible.
- Khalilah Morse: [524 pounds] I am not your typical fat person. I exercise, I play with my kids, I go to school, I can walk, I can drive, I have a social life, I got a MAN! You know, we do what we do.
- [laughs]
- Narrator: At her heaviest, Khalilah weighed 43 stone, but she's now on a mission to take control of her health.
- Khalilah Morse: I'm tired of the looks that I get. I'm tired of the judgment.
- Jo Allan: [271 pounds] There's just so much I feel I can't do with my kids because of my size.
- Khalilah Morse: [524 pounds] Yeah.
- Jo Allan: You know, just playing football with my little boy and going swimming. I won't wear the swimming costume.
- Khalilah Morse: No? Why not?
- Jo Allan: I just don't feel comfortable. I feel almost naked wearing it.
- Khalilah Morse: Well you know one thing that I'm uncomfortable about is, I feel bad because I don't really go to the movies, because the seats are kind of small, and I don't know if I can fit in them.
- Himself - Presenter: This is a bit different, it's not a photograph, it's an x-ray obviously, and it's an x-ray of what?
- Joanne, Keith: Spine.
- Himself - Presenter: Yeah, what's the name of the condition?
- Joanne: Osteoporosis.
- Himself - Presenter: What is it?
- Joanne: It's thinning of the bones.
- Himself - Presenter: It's loss of bone mass, and therefore loss of bone strength, which then leads to breakages and fractures. Causes of osteoporosis can be vitamin D deficiency, calcium deficiency, very very painful.
- Edward: [378 pounds] As I was growing up, I was basically the only child in my grandmother's house, she cooked for an army and she always cooked for an army. They didn't look at it like 'Well, he's gaining weight, it's unhealthy', they didn't think it was such a problem. The things I miss most are going out on Friday and Saturday nights, you meet someone at a club or a bar or you go for a walk. these are the simple things I can't do anymore. It's a special kind of person who's gonna want to hold your hand while they're walking and you're rolling down the street on a motorized scooter. Because I'm overweight, it caused me to get diabetes and the diabetes resulted in me having kidney problems which caused renal failure and I ended up with edema which means I have swelling of the legs. And I ended up with neuropathy in my feet, the neuropathy means you can't feel anything on your feet and I developed an ulcer on my toe, and that ulcer on my toe infected a bone and they opted to just remove the toe to guarantee it wouldn't infect the rest of my foot and end up amputating my foot or my leg. My kidneys are so badly damaged that I can't overexert myself so I can't be on my feet too long or I become very lightheaded. I'm usually always always tired. I'm probably awake and conscious maybe of a 24 hour day maybe 6 hours. Leighton, feeling your time by eating now, it feels good, but eventually you're gonna end up in the hospital and there's gonna be a lot of agony and sickness involved. If you can avoid that, wouldn't you want to? Don't let your weight get out of control, you'll definitely have a happier life and live a whole lot longer and a whole lot happier.
- Himself - Presenter: So tell me your thoughts looking at you now.
- Emma: [watching stock images of herself] Very bony and old wrinkly skin. Old.
- Himself - Presenter: You keep saying old, which is interesting.
- Emma: Yeah.
- Himself - Presenter: Is that something that plays on your mind?
- Emma: No, not really, I just didn't think that my skin looked that bad.
- Himself - Presenter: And from a medical point of view looking at your skin, yeah I would agree with you, I think it is slightly damaged and aged more than I would expect. Your diet to an extent can help protect that. Minerals like selenium and zinc are really really good at wiping up those free radicals. You as you now know, are not getting enough of those things in your diet, in fact you're deficient in them. And I would think that's why it's more apparent. But one of the biggest things is you're in control of all this, all you have to do is eat more.
- Emma: I always thought I had a really healthy diet, thought I was getting the right nutrients and minerals and vitamins, but yeah it's quite shocking when you find otherwise, thought you've been doing it right all along when you haven't. It's a big shock.
- Narrator: Dr. Christian wants to shock Gary into seeing what his future could become if he keeps eating at his present rate. So he's sending him across the Atlantic to Farmington, Missouri, to meet ex-security guard, Narry.
- Narry Britton: My name is Narry Britton, I'm 36 and a half stone.
- Narrator: After years of binging, Narry's weight had ballooned to 50 stone, when he had an accident that changed his life.
- Narry Britton: I was going to the restroom one morning and I fell, it broke my back, I was in a coma for 3 days. When I come out of it, they told me that I was going to be paralyzed for the rest of my life.
- Narrator: Narry fell because his legs gave way under the weight of his 50 stone body. He spent 4 years recuperating in a nursing home, where he met Debbie.
- Narry Britton: Debbie is my caregiver, she's also my fiancee.
- Narrator: Paralyzed from the waist down, Narry uses a wheelchair, and has a catalog of health problems due to his obesity.
- Narry Britton: I have diabetes, kidney failure, sleep apnea. When I have to go to the bathroom, I have to go on paper towels. She says it doesn't bother her but it has to some.
- Narrator: With Debbie's help, Narry's lost 13 stone.
- Narrator: Narry's health condition requires close supervision by the district nurse. The folds of fat are a breeding ground for bacteria and his skin is riddled with painful sores.
- Debbie: This is a big sore here, that's an infection that went all the way down to the bone and ate his skin away.
- Gary: [turns away] Oh, shit.
- Narry: That big hole you see.
- Gary: Yeah?
- Narry: It was big enough, it was big enough you could put your feet inside of it.
- Gary: Oh she-it. This is too much.
- Narrator: Seeing first hand where his weight gain could lead has put Gary under pressure. He starts to feel unwell, and complains of a throbbing headache. Concerned, Debbie takes his blood pressure.
- Debbie: This is not good, I got 232 over 115.
- Narrator: It's almost double the healthy level.
- Debbie: Let's call an ambulance.
- Paramedic: You take blood pressure medicine?
- Gary: No.
- Paramedic: No medical problems at all?
- Gary: No, I'm overweight.
- Paramedic: 280 over 120.
- Gary: 280?
- Paramedic: You're really high.
- Narrator: Seriously overweight with high blood pressure, Gary's at risk of having a stroke of heart attack.
- Paramedic: At any time, you could blow a blood vessel in your head.
- Narrator: Fearing the worst, paramedics take him to hospital for specialist care.
- Melissa Bushnell: My name is Melissa Bushnell, I'm 38 and I weigh 32 stones, 4 pounds.
- [452 pounds]
- Narrator: Melissa lives with Mike, her husband of 16 years. She's been overweight all her adult life and begins her problems began with a difficult childhood.
- Melissa Bushnell: In my home as a child, food wasn't always available so when I was somewhere there was food, I tended to just eat and eat like there was no tomorrow. When there was food it was very much a comfort for me, I'm definitely a food addict.
- Narrator: Melissa has developed weight related health problems which are serious and distressing.
- Melissa Bushnell: My back hurts pretty much constantly and my knees tend to just give out. I literally just cry when I get out of bed, the pain is so great. Some days I just want to give up.
- Mike Bushnell: I mean it's tough watching her being in so much pain, it really is. I mean...
- [gets choked up]
- Melissa Bushnell: I want to be a mom. My greatest achievement in life would be to be a mother, and obviously at my weight right now I would not even consider becoming pregnant, there's just too many health risks.
- Narrator: Melissa's longing for a child is compounded by a miscarriage she suffered in 2004 and the guilt she feels.
- Melissa Bushnell: I can say that I don't blame myself but I do, you know deep in my heart there's a part of me that still blames myself for it. I was so unhealthy when I got pregnant, I was smoking and I wasn't taking care of my diabetes at all.
- Narrator: Each year, she and Mike mark the anniversary of when their daughter would've been born.
- Melissa Bushnell: [weeping] Baby girl we know you're in heaven with Mom and Grandma and Grandpa and we love you.
- [releases balloons]
- Melissa Bushnell: We'll see you again someday.
- Himself - Presenter: Hi Melissa.
- Melissa Bushnell: Nice to meet you.
- Himself - Presenter: I'm Christian, the strange doctor from England.
- [Melissa laughs]
- Narrator: Dr. Christian wants to understand how Melissa's experience of miscarriage is affecting her.
- Melissa Bushnell: I was not taking care of myself, and I was taking care of my mom, she was dying at the time from liver failure, and so I was taking care of her when I got pregnant, I was taking care of someone else when I should've been taking care of myself. And I was so happy to find out I was pregnant 3 days after Christmas, and then to lose the baby, which was the most awful thing in my life.
- Himself - Presenter: I don't think we can say that your miscarriage was a result of your weight, I don't think that would be fair at all. But there is a very important message here, pregnancies when you're overweight and obese are so much harder, so that's why it's really important you guys are working harder at this.
- Melissa Bushnell: If I can help her to not get where I am when she's my age, then my job is done.
- Himself - Presenter: [to Lauren] It is easy to get where to the place Bettie Jo is now, it is easier than you think. It's kind of this sobering warning I wanted to give you. It will just happen, and I know it doesn't just happen overnight, but it will creep up on you because every day that you don't do something about it, every day you have your 6-7-8 thousand calorie junk food day which is pretty much every day for you, it just adds a little more weight, a little more weight, and the more weight you put on, the less you can exercise and the harder and harder it gets.
- Himself - Presenter: Oh my goodness me, it looks like a hot tub.
- Keith Davis, Goliath Casket Inc.: This is our largest casket, it's 52 inches wide, it'll hold over 1,000 pounds.
- Himself - Presenter: So we're talking 70, 80+ stone, how many of these are called for?
- Keith Davis, Goliath Casket Inc.: In the 1990s, this casket didn't even *exist*. In 2000, we sold 12, and we're selling about 4 of this type per month.
- Himself - Presenter: Can I look inside? Is that alright?
- Keith Davis, Goliath Casket Inc.: Absolutely.
- Himself - Presenter: Oh, it's heavy. It's, absolutely mind blow-boggling.
- Keith Davis, Goliath Casket Inc.: Well you can actually get three people in this casket. This casket will require probably two grave plots, maybe three, it won't fit in a hearse.
- Himself - Presenter: And I would imagine the person that's going into this size is not very old either.
- Keith Davis, Goliath Casket Inc.: Unfortunately not. The average age for my records is around 45 years old. We've had large caskets, not this size, but large caskets for as young as 11 years old.
- Himself - Presenter: I'm, really distressed.
- Keith Davis, Goliath Casket Inc.: We're going to see the first generation that's *not* going to live as long as their parents lived, because of this.
- Himself - Presenter: When you tell me you've seen 11 year olds, I just... I'm at a loss for words, I'm really upset by that. And I know this happens, but when you see the box that you actually use, it's no exaggeration, this isn't a film set.
- Keith Davis, Goliath Casket Inc.: This is a real casket.
- Narrator: One leading UK manufacturers has quoted 15% of the coffins they supply are now classed as 'outsized', and they've seen a tenfold rise in demand for these in just 10 years.
- Keith Davis, Goliath Casket Inc.: We have it too easy too much, you go to a fast food restaurant, a standard beef patty used to be six ounces, now they're 10, 12, a third of a pound of hamburger, are you kidding me? Who needs a third of a pound of hamburger? No one, no one, we think more is better, more is not better.
- Narrator: It's clear that obesity is a disease that has far reaching effects, in death as well as in life.
- Kenny: [518 pounds] Being as large I am and having this obesity problem, it's caused a great number of regrets for me, for the fact that I cannot have activities with my children, that I have three grandchildren now, as one of my biggest loves is skiing, and I badly want to teach my children, my son to ski and be able to go with them, he's now interested in snowboarding and he's done pretty good on his own, but I have to sit at the lodge and watch him come down the hill, I can't go with him. I need a lot of assistance doing routine activities that a lot of people take for granted. My esteem is so low it just makes me feel less than a person I could be or want to be. Because of my obesity, I started having some serious health issues: I have high blood pressure I have to take medication for, the extra weight on my body's affecting my joints in such a way I'm just filled with arthritis, I had a pulmonary embolism in January of 2008 which I was hospitalized for, one thing leads to another with the obesity to the point now I'm on so much medication and that I can't really do anything on my own without getting assistance. A message I would like to send out is that the weight problem, the obesity problem isn't something you have to fix on your own, find the courage to ask for help, and to get the help you need because you don't want to suffer and miss out on the opportunities that life has to offer. You know, don't wait until it's too late because if you don't, you'll die.
- Victor: Hi, my name is Victor, I'm 43 years old, and I weigh 36 stone. When I was 31 I was 270 pounds, I played basketball almost every day. My first wife died of breast cancer, my mother died five months later, I was major depressed, manic depressed, and between the alcohol, the drugs and the food, that's all I ever did. I went from 270 to 350 in a matter of months, then from that to 400, but that was a spiral, the more weight you gain, the more you start not to care. It is giving you a death sentence, it is, and the truth is there're so many ways to die when you're this weight, because it affects every aspect of your life. Death does not just mean physical death, it simply means having no life. I have children from six to 16, I can't run behind them at this weight, I want to dance with them but I can't because I don't have the mobility or the wind to do that. In my mind I can conceive throwing the baseball to my son or out there playing with them, but my body says 'no', you know, and the weight says 'no', and many times it's depressing. Now I tell anybody 'Man, if you can reverse the curse of morbid obesity, do it before it gets out of control'. Wayne, eating emotionally from emotions is not the way. Try to find a better way to deal with your emotions rather than eating, because it's costing you your life. You don't want to have to get to this point where I'm at now, it's a long road back and everybody doesn't make it back, so why even go there? Food is just as detrimental as crack cocaine or heroin addiction or any other addiction, it will affect every aspect of your life, you know some of the ways I'm talking about right now. You know some of the things that you used to do that you can't right now, it only gets worse, don't let it overtake you, it's a monster and it will overrule your entire life.
- Self - Presenter: I'm going to show you a picture.
- Lucy: [gasps] Oh.
- Self - Presenter: That's someone who actually is anorexic.
- Lucy: [in horror] It's disgusting.
- Self - Presenter: And who has purposely under-eaten, it's skeletal, and the reason it's skeletal is cuz all the muscle has been, you know, reabsorbed by the body in a desperate attempt for it to get some energy. And my worry is that your level of control and paranoia over what you eat may well mask any sense of reality, so that you do get to that stage without even realizing it.
- Lucy: I can see it now, see that's not what I want to look like. If my daughter came home looking like that...
- Self - Presenter: You'd be extremely worried, wouldn't you?
- Lucy: Yeah, I can see now what everyone's been telling me.
- Self - Presenter: You just need to relax about your food, you need to enjoy it, you need to let go a little bit.
- Ruth: Hi, my name is Ruth Vandendoren, and I'm 51 years old, and I weigh 31 stone. Being one of seven kids, food was very scarce, food back then was survival, if you didn't have food, you were gonna go hungry, and I think back when I was a kid, that was the way I thought of food, if I didn't have it, I was gonna die. When I was 14, I was 16 stones and in my 20s I was about 20 stones and in my 30s about 28, and it has progressively gone up to where I am now, which is 31 stones. There's folds in like, my back I can't wash, I have my husband come in and help me, if I have a sore I can't see, I need him to tell me where it's at, if I don't take care of that sore, it easily turns into a staph infection. One thing in the creases is you sweat, these smell *horrible*, and it's very very embarrassing, or if I have to lift my flab which is this apron fat that sits on my legs and you feel the goo, it's like putting your fingers in a jar of mayonnaise, and that's kind of what it looks like, it is the most ungodly smell. Over the past three years I've been in the hospital three times, two years ago I had a heart attack, I felt like my body was shutting down. I was having a hard time breathing, and that was scary being in the hospital and not sure if you're gonna live. I haven't seen my grandkids since 2005, and I used to spend every single day with my grandkids; where I am now, there's no way I can get on a plane to see them, I mean, that's gut-wrenching. But, that's my reality. I think the most important thing to remember is that life's a journey, and you definitely do not want to take the journey that I'm taking.
- Laurie: Hi, I'm Laurie, I'm 30 stone, and this is my story. My weight actually started escalating when I got married the first time. I probably went from 21 stone to 30 stone in just a year, which is a significant jump. I regret that I gave up, that I haven't retrained myself to eat properly, I would give anything to have a different life than what I have right now. When I'm showering I have to watch like special attention behind my knees, under my breasts, definitely under the apron of fat, and then the genital area, it's hard to keep clean and I have to take extra special care. I can't stand for significant periods of time so anything more than a couple of minutes and I need to sit down. And to ease the time in the kitchen, will use the chair to do dishes or sitting at the stove, I like to use it while I'm waiting for the microwave. Louise, don't give up, take care of your weight now if you can, don't wait 20 years down the line and lose 20 years of your life, when you could be living it to the fullest now. There's so many things that if I could go back I would redo, and you've got a chance now, so do it.
Contribuir a esta página
Sugerir un cambio o añadir el contenido que falta
Principal laguna de datos
By what name was En tu talla o en la mía (2008) officially released in India in English?
Responde