Reality TV Show

[LovelyLadyLux]

Was flipping channels on the TV and came across a show featuring an enormous woman. Apparently she was close to weighing 800 pounds.

I typically avoid "Reality Shows" like the plague and have no interest in them at all but this seemed documentary-ish at the start. I couldn't seem to take my eyes off this show and this enormous woman and this doctor who treated her re: weight loss via surgery.

The name of this show was "My 600 Pound Life" and showed how a doctor (in Texas I think) treats the morbidly obese through diet and gastric surgery to decrease the size of the stomach and their efforts to lose weigh and regain a normal life. This woman wasn't even able to support her own weight on admission to hospital and followed her attempts to lose weigh.

Can't imagine the pain these people must be in.

[Grandad]

I have seen some of these morbidly obese people LLL. Like a pile of blubber lying on a bed. We have had cases where part of the house has had to be removed in order to get the 'patient' to hoslital.

If they are able to lose a significant amount of weight they then require major surgery to cut away the saggy bags that are left. I don't know if this condition is medical or self inflicted but, whatever, such people look pretty groos.

[LovelyLadyLux]

I felt bad for this grossly grossly obese lady. The show started basically showing her almost naked on a bed detailing all the personal private functions she could no longer even do for herself and needed her adult daughter to do for her. It was awful, she was awful but I couldn't help but look at her. She couldn't even stand and support her own weight. This show documented how she was kept in hospital for a year and lost something like 265 pounds which brought her down to the 550 pound range.

I have no idea, even if this woman lost mega pounds, how she could remotely function as her skin would be so loose it would just hang and sag on her.

I felt almost voyeuristic watching this show but couldn't take my eyes off it.

[Jayway]

I have no sympathy for these people at all. Yes I would help truly disabled people and have - - wouldnt lift a finger to help these greedy (they must be rich to afford all that food) f----rs when there are kids in UK starving.

[LovelyLadyLux]

This woman looked to be on welfare. She was Black, being looked after by a daughter and living in a pretty crummy looking place.

What I thought was - how could she even buy that much food if she was living on welfare. She definitely wasn't working for years as she had been bed ridden for years (don't remember exactly but years).

What are you eating that puts you upwards of 800 pounds on welfare? And when you get so heavy your feet don't support your own weight doesn't that make the light bulb come on? And if you can't find clothes to fit you - ????

I don't get it how you could do this to yourself...........

[Grandad]

I am with Jayway on this.

[Kiya]

What annoys me most those who have had help to lose the excess weight when they go back to interview them sometime later they have piled it all on again..................some you just cant help for all their greed & laziness

[Horus]

I have always wondered just where they get all that food from, someone must be feeding them if they are housebound. It also comes down to inactivity, what you use in calories must equate to what you put in, so if you are very inactive then anything over the calories you need to live will turn into stored fat. Over a long time then just a few ounces per week will result in huge weight gains if the excess is not burnt off in some way. So I reckon that laziness is often at the root of their huge weight and as they get even heavier it then becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

[Mad Dilys]

One South American town has a problem with over-sized people taking up too much room on narrow pavements!

Other pedestrians step into the road to go round them and get run over by big lorries from the new mining development.

The town mayor came up with this suggestion - people who were large enough to make an average person step off the pavement should they come face to face would be charged for a Fat Licence.

The rate was I think -$50 for a year, $10 a month or if visiting $5 a day.

The money collected was put towards the cost of Medical Insurance for pedestrians injured by stepping off the pavement.

If a large person was found not to have a licence then they might get a maximum of three warnings before they were jailed and offered advice on nutrition, a slimming diet and choice of various exercises including pilates and yoga until they have reached a healthy weight.

Sounds very enlightened to me.

[Horus]

It sounds like a good idea, but where do you stop? stepping around someone who smokes? someone carrying an erect umbrella? someone pushing a pram? A bike? carrying shopping? It does seem like targeting a certain sector to me rather than being something practical, for example what happens if an obese person has to step off the pavement to pass another obese person, who is at fault? or the obese person steps into the road to pass a thin person and gets injured?

[Mad Dilys]

Apparently they have stopped with the basic idea which seems to have cut the accidents dramatically.

[LovelyLadyLux]

I don't know how the human body can even grow to this size. I mean it obvious can cause it has but I would think that the heart or other internal organs would give out as they're just clogged with fat. I don't get it as there does come a tipping point between being able to look after yourself and having somebody else do it. Wouldn't even the embarrassment of having to have somebody else wipe your bum make you want to stop or slow down the eating?

I never saw this show before and really hope not to see it again. It was really gross and featured enablers.

I think in some cases there may be a glandular component but I think that would be extremely extremely rare. In the show I saw the person was definitely shoveling back the food (probably not even nutritious food).

@MD I think I recently heard about the tax on the obese people. Can't put my finger on where I heard about it but I did.