half ton, 64 stone, 900lb woman

[mike9876]

Here in the UK last night we had a programme on called the half ton mother living in the US.

The woman was super obese tipping the scales at 64 stone or 900lbs. Her 14 year old daughter said she would eat until her stomach would hurt. She would buy eight 1 dollar burgers to eat, the burgers in the US are 3 to 4 times bigger than here in the UK. She was completely in cloud cuckoo land, saying my waist is small and I have a flat stomach. Her 14 year daughter was obesed but go herself down to normal weight and the youngest child was overweight. Her sister is obese.

The daughters answer was some people can't help being obese its in their family. People are obese because they eat too much and love food. What they do, is they pass on the large portion size and bad eating eating habits onto to their kids.

In my local supermarket if I see obese kids and weight to see if the parents are obese, sure enough they are.


But the interesting part was she had normal blood sugar levels and normal blood pressure, the doctors couldn't work out why. The answer to why gastric by pass patients reverse their diabetes in days must be in the super obese patients who don't develope type 2. There must be something else going on after the op.

[REDLAN]

The daughters answer was some people can't help being obese its in their family. People are obese because they eat too much and love food. What they do, is they pass on the large portion size and bad eating eating habits onto to their kids.

I think you'll find that the daughter's statement is more accurate. Last time I looked the heritability of obesity was thought to be around 40% to 70%.

which explains why diets are singularly unsuccessful in reducing weight in the long term. All diets work in the short term 12-18 months maximum. They typically offer a weight loss of between 5% and 10%. After this period ALL diets are characterised by weight regain. By the 5 year mark the vast majority (i.e. 95%) of subjects will have regained all the weight that they lost. Diet studies are also characterised by extremely high drop out rates 60%-70% drop out rates are not unusual.

UCLA have conducted a recent look at diet studies and drew these conclusions after analysing I believe it was 36 long term studies.

In the states, I understand that adverts for diet products have to carry a "result not typical" logo in the corner, which is another way of saying (somewhat amusingly) that their product doesn't work.

On the other question regarding the woman's normal blood sugar, and blood pressure, I believe that the doctors have a problem understanding the difference between correlation and causation.

Obesity has been shown to be a risk factor for high blood pressure heart disease diabetes amongst others - Saying that you have a high risk for something does not necessarily mean you will get it - note people still die from lung cancer, without being exposed to tobacco smoke.

I would suspect that this woman, lacks the required genetic predisposition to develop metabolic syndrome, and therefore type 2 diabetes. she just isn't susceptible to type 2 - she's just extraordinarily fat.

[mike9876]

I was not talking about dieting but people who become obese from eating too much and not taking any exercise.

What normal person would eat 8 burgers or keeping on eating until their stomach hurt. If you were to look at the diet of somebody obese and keep a note of what they eat in a week you would be amazed.

Once somebody becomes obese it takes very little food to maintain the weight because they don't exercise. What they do is keep on eating and eating and getting bigger and bigger. If their obesity was down genetics then why does the gastric by pass surgery work and weight comes off pretty quick in the 1st year. Simple they are not stuffing their faces and sitting on their backside all day.

We have a programme on here where people are helped to lose weight, its does not use a diet but sensible healthy eating with exercise. They lay out what the person eats in a week, and guess what its all high fat high sugar food and masses of it. After 6 weeks they have lost between 7 to 10lb. Remember no diet but exercise and a healthy diet has been used.

There is a well know chap on brit TV called charlie. He got down from over 30 stone with sensible eating and exercise and now he has run the london marathon. Before he had a shopping bill for a family of 4 and it was all just for him.

I know diets don't work and never said they do. There is only one way to lose weight and that is exercise and a helthy diet with no over eating.

Children who become obese are not at fault but the parents are because they are feed the wrong types of food and obese parents will serve food at a portion which is way too much for a child. When a obese person looks at a plate of food the brain will look at the how much food is on the plate say its smaller than normal and the body needs more.

Nobody can tell me a child of 10 becomes 12 stone because of genetics and a person does not become 64 stone because of genetics. What they are is greedy and can't stop eating everything in sight.

[gettingby]

I do believe that genetics do play a part in obesity but it is also that children are not made to get out and exercise. Some parents would rather have their children sit in front of a tv playing the video games they bought for them than see them get outside and enjoy the great outdoors. Truly sad. :(
I sat and watched a US talk show one day that showed a one year old boy who was terribly obese. Turned out he had a medical disorder but his mother just continued to feed his hunger instead of finding out the cause until she came on the show. :(

[mike9876]

The only medical condition I know that will cause obesity is prada willy and is a genetic illeness. The suffer never feels full and they have other problems with the condition.

The girl of the mother who died of a heart attack a month after the surgery is 14 and she decided to eat the amount of food the average person would and she now the right weight for her height.

95% of obese people are obese because they eat too much.

[REDLAN]

If their obesity was down genetics then why does the gastric by pass surgery work and weight comes off pretty quick in the 1st year.

the answer to this is that bariatric surgery forces the individual into what in the nomenclature is known as a VLCD (Very Low Calorie Diet). It becomes extremely hard for the individual to eat a significant number of calories

Simple they are not stuffing their faces and sitting on their backside all day

actually the person has to spend significant portions of the day preparing food and eating. The act of eating actually becomes very time consuming - many individuals with bariatric surgery actually become borderline malnourished, and frequently require supplementation.

Interestingly bariatric surgery still will not make a fat person thin - I checked out a 5 year follow up - the average weight loss after 5 years of an enforced VLCD is around 70% of excess weight. Assuming that a 6 foot man with a BMI of 45 had surgery he would expect after 5 years on a VLCD to end up with a BMI of around 30, which is a massive drop in weight, but he would still be obese

Weight loss outcome after silastic ring Roux-en-Y ...[Obes Surg. 2007] - PubMed Result (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18098397?ordinalpos=3&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsP anel.Pubmed_RVDocSum)

question - if as you assert that people are fat because they eat too much, why do bariatric patients not become thin? Why will they still be overweight/obese?

I know diets don't work and never said they do. There is only one way to lose weight and that is exercise and a healthy diet with no over eating.

unfortunately it doesn't work - a study I read a while back which actually looked at healthy eating in women and then looked for correlations with cancer and other health outcomes. It was large (around 30,000 individuals), and mean follow up was 8 years. One group were instructed in the standard healthy eating advice (low fat, 5 portions a day), and the other group could eat what they liked.

The difference in weight between the 2 groups after 8 years?

on average 1kg or about 2lbs (and this was despite the healthy eating group eating fewer calories)

On the question of exercise - unfortunately obesity researchers themselves admit that exercise has very little effect on weight.

on a more personal note, a friend of mine who has spent most of her life firmly in the obese category, decided to lose weight. She decided to measure her success based on dress sizes. She started off with a calorie restricted diet and exercise. She's dropped the calorie restrictions, and just eats sensibly. Instead she has got the exercise bug. After 2 years she is supremely fit, but still firmly in the overweight category.

A couple of months ago, we had a dscussion about why she wasn't getting any faster with her running, and cycling. So I asked her if she had any rest days. She admitted that she didn't have any, and she was recovering from a sprained ankle. A typical weekend is to run 10k on saturday, and then come out on sunday on a 25-30 mile X-country cycle.

She confessed that if she didn't keep up the exercise, the weight piles back on. She notices it within a couple of weeks. So she has to maintain her exercise.

I don't watch what I eat, I do walk regularly, play a bit of footie, and cycle most sundays - I'm very resolutely stuck in normal weight category.

and you don't think that genetics play a major role?

[REDLAN]

The only medical condition I know that will cause obesity is prada willy and is a genetic illeness.

I had a quick look on wrong diagnosis.com, they list 171 medical conditions that can cause obesity

full list here...

Causes of Obesity - WrongDiagnosis.com (http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/symptoms/obesity/causes.htm)

they include middle age spread, underactive thyroid, syndrome X, although they do also include obesity as a cause of obesity (",)

[princesslinda]

I'm a "big-girl," have been even bigger than my current weight. I exercise regularly, and do watch my diet now that I have diabetes. I'm down 80 lbs since diagnosis and still have a ways to go. One thing that has always frustrated me was that I could go out with my skinny friends and eat less than they did, while still being so much bigger than they were. Even husband has always been amazed that I can maintain my weight eating so much less than he does, both quantity and calorie-wise. It seems it takes FOREVER for the pounds to come off. It is a struggle, and I feel for anyone dealing with extra pounds.

I do believe obesity is certainly exacerbated by overeating and sedentary lifestyle, but I don't feel these are the exclusive causes of it.

Even now, after losing the weight i've lost, when people hear I have diabetes, I get "you really should try and lose more weight"...well DUH!!!! :mad: If only the weight came off as quickly and as easily as it went on.

[Jill-O]

Some people need much less calories than other people even when they have similar life styles. Some people are just "easier keepers" than are others. It's wrong to assume that everyone who's over weight eats a lot of food. True, the wouldn't be over weight if they didn't eat more than their body needed to function, but the amount may be considerably less than a thin person regularly eats.

I see it in horses, and really, they're just animals as are we. I have 20 or so and some I can feed 1/2 as much as I might feed another and yet they are fat. Bodies do not all act the same and a person may need less than they eat but also may truly be hungry hungry hungry.

Also, I personally feel some frustration because insulin is helping me control my numbers but has turned me into a much easier keeper than I would like. It's like I feel hungry so much of the time. Trying not to eat "too much" and am active every day. It's just not easy though I know a lot of the world wants to sneer at Fat America.

[mike9876]

One of the problems trying to lose weight with exercise is many make the mistake of turning fat into muscle, muscle is heavier than fat.

There are 2 simple rules to follow, exercise before breakfast and you will burn twice as many calories than after breakfast and don't each any carbs after 6pm. carbs after 6pm will be stored as fat. These are the rules body builders follow.

At the gym tonight I met a couple of people who were both medically obese in a past life as they put it, they looked slim and toned. What they did was to eat sensible and exercise. Nothing else. They exercised before breakfast and in the evening. A persons metabolic rate will differ from person to person, but people make the mistake to skip breakfast which slows down their metabolic rate. Exercise raises the metabolic rate.

The other mistake people make when trying to lose weight they cut down their food intake too quickly sending the body into famine mode and no matter what they do the weight refuses to shift.

People might think I am talking about people who are obese, I am talking about the super obese like the woman in the programme. Who eats till their stomach hurts and she wonders why she is fat. I can agree on the genetically one person to another will need different amounts of food but I don't agree on your genetic make ups somebody obese.

A person should be able to work out how much food intake their body needs and only eat what the body requires. I eat 3 times a day and maybe a apple for a snack, I don't always eat the health option but over all my diet is balanced.

Anybody on here can try this. Exercise before breakfast, have carbs with lunch, exercise early evening and then a light dinner of veg with chicken, fish or meat, and if a snack is needed in between an apple or a orange.

[Jill-O]

Thanks, Mike, but I actually think most of us here do know what it takes to be in shape. Not only do I know it, but I apply it to myself and my hobby (own some top halter horses). What I'd like to do is loose 10# and am correct when I say that using insuling has made that more of a battle than it used to be. And, promise you -- though I am an American woman, I am not the 900lb one from the tv show :T