For this to make me so angry - obese teenager, todays Daily Telegraph

[foreverondiet]

link

Basically, she was funded by her local health board to attend a programme in the USA at a cost of over £4k a month for a 9 month period....

"She said: "I'd been following a programme of healthy eating in the camp where I'd been living in North Carolina, America, and I'd learned to enjoy low-fat foods like salads, bagels, yoghurt and even buffalo meat. "I was really looking forward to trying it all out back home but, when I arrived, my mum said she hadn't had time to prepare any healthy food so we had fish and chips instead.

"From that moment on, I had a niggling feeling that things weren't going to work out."

Wow - what a load of tripe coming out from some posters. She has had food issues her whole life - a lightbulb does not go off at 16/17/18 saying now you are an adult. It is so easy to lapse back into addiction and emotional support is needed to stay 'clean'. Give the poor girl a break - having an eating disorder is hellish. It is so typical that mental health issues are not taken seriously by some idiots posters.

4k a month for 9 months? Yes, I see that's money well spent

please read my post earlier LadyoftheManor - it was free, she was funded by the place itself.

Of course she has serious food issues, and I expect the fat camp in the USA would have dealt with some of these. However for her to continue to benefit from this (ie dealing with her food issues) on her return home her family would have had to be 100% supportive on her return and have made some changes.

I am for her that they were not supportive on her return. And yes she has been let down by the NHS and her family.

There must be some serious psychological codependency issues going on in that family that need to be addressed. Fat camp is just an expensive sticking plaster in that kind of situation.

Whoever is feeding her that much is abusing her.....she is not going out to buy it herself: at that weight I doubt she can walk far, let alone carrying bags and bags of food, and where does she get the money for SOOOO much? It's difficult to imagine she could get a job at 40 stone....

Oh Balloon I see.

Why not just give her a gastric band for say 3k?

Notpy- who do you blame if she's feeding herself?

This is one of the saddest stories Ive heard :(

Clearly the problem is one of

1. Lack of access to healthy food

1. Lack of access to exercise facilities

Presumably fish and chips are easily available near their home - whereas fruit and veg shops are becoming an endangered species.
The article also states that she is not able to afford the gym (they are very expensive for low incomes), or to access sports facilities/teams. - An issue for her local council.

oh it was a depressing read.

She's getting out of the house once a day yet eating junkfood daily - so who is actually providing/preparing this food?

She says she can't afford the gym - but she lost the weight by exercising by walking 10,000 in the USA. I believe walking is free in the UK?

Also if she stopped overeating, surely she'd free up some ££ towards gym membership if that's what she really wants.

Believe me, I'm not without sympathy for the girl, but she isn't taking any responsibility for her life and she needs to. She sounds very much like my Mum, who is now mid-60's and REALLY starting to suffer from 40 years of being obese and helpless to do anything about it (She says many of the same things this girl does)

I'd imagine she doesn't just take herself out for walks for exercise because a) it's probably very hard to move at that weight and b) she would almost certainly face a barrage of abuse from certain members of the public :(.

I would also love to take her away and give her a chance of a decent life, poor kid. It's all very well saying she's now old enough to take responsibility for herself but given the background it can hardly be a great surprise that she doesn't. She needs to get out of that home and have some support to get back on track. She's shown that she clearly is able to do something about it with the right support.

I agree to those who have compared it to anorexia, bulimia, alcoholism etc. You don't get that big without there being serious psychiatric problems at the core. That's what needs to be tackled. Heartbreaking really.

There has got to be some degree of mental health difficulty involved in addition to the other issues already raised on this thread. Some of the attitudes on this thread are disgusting.

She also probably finds it very difficult to get out of the house - even if she wanted to go out for a walk, she also has to care for her mother, she may not be able to spend any time for herself.

She hasn't always fed herself though and the eating patterns/emotions she has gone through do not just get washed away. Seems some empathy might not go amiss here

Some very nasty comments on this thread. Fat bastards is just despicable.

sorry should read she's getting out of the house once a WEEK!

If she can afford to go out and eat junk food in the amounts that she is, why can't she pay for the gym?

My sil is fat, and the doctor gave her a letter which means she only has to pay £1 to use the gym and swimming is free. (I think £1 for the gym is the insurance expenses).

Can't this girl's doctor put her on a free-gym pass thing? Or just give her a gastric band, that way she can't over eat even if she wants to.

The sad reality is that there is a small minority of parents who really do not want their children to have happy and successful lives. Her mother could well have gained some kind of sick thrill from her daughter getting like this. It is a very powerful way of ensuring that your child can never leave home.

For those of you shouting about gastric bands, can I point out that they do not help with pyschological issues either. People who have them do actually continue to eat rubbish, and the NHS spends even more on them when they get readmitted. How ridiculous to say she has been let down by the NHS she was sent to a camp that is known to have effective methods for 9 months! And how much "care" does this mother need if she can manage to cook she must have a degree of independence?! The human physiology has not changed in thousands of years, there is no reason why people should be so much obese than 50 years ago other than the fact that we overeat, we eat junk and we take no responsibility for our own health, and we have too much available to us. All the while living much easier lives with less genuine stresses than the war generations.

Georgia added: "I'd also learned to love exercise in America, using a gym and playing proper sports like tennis and basketball for the first time. But back home, it soon became obvious it wasn't going to be easy.

"The same facilities weren't available here and I couldn't easily afford to join the local gym. I soon found I was becoming much less mobile, just like before."

This situation is only going to get more common as the cuts and privatisation put more exercise facilities out of reach, financially and geographically.

It doesn't cost anything to go for a walk or jog...or invest in an exercise video.

Ladyofthemaner - why should people have to wait until they are obese before they get access to affordable exercise facilities??!

yes, what the CrackFox said

but this girl had an opportunity when she was sent to the US, and she chose to throw it away on her return. All addicts have to take some responsibility for their behaviour. Responsibility is not a switch that gets turned on on the day you turn 18.

She chose to get fat again, because of her unsupportive mother, but maybe also because being the UK's fattest teen was part of her identity, along with being her mother's carer. Of course their relationship will be ccomplex, but there were still choices made.

I just posted and said some exercise is free.