A new documentary about morbidly obese people has highlighted the danger of parents who enable their children’s eating habits.
Susan Farmer, from Eddy, Texas, who weighs 43st (605 lbs), was told she would die unless she dropped more than half her body weight by concerned doctors.
But while the 37 year old was determined to shed the weight, her mother continued to buy her daughter fatty foods.
At her heaviest, Susan weighed 43st and was unable to walk for longer than 30 seconds at a time.
Speaking on the TLC show My 600lb Life, which aired at 9pm tonight, she reveals how the excess flab caused her permanent pain.
She said: ‘Life is miserable, I hurt all the time.'
‘I don’t get up much with me having this big stomach, it pulls on me so bad and it feels like my skin is on fire and it’s just going to melt.
‘I have trouble breathing, especially when I’m walking and I have to take baby steps because I’m afraid of falling - if I fell, there’s nothing anybody can do for me.
‘I don’t like looking at myself so I don’t look at myself in the mirror - to me I’m fat and ugly.’
At 37 years old, Susan continues to live with her mother Nita, who dotes on her daughter and does all of her washing, cooking and cleaning.
Although Nita admits that he daughter’s weight is putting her in serious danger, she appears unable to stop buying her the food that is making her fat.
The pair are filmed visiting their local supermarket, where Susan says: ‘I don’t like going out much anymore. I only go out to get food or if I have to.
‘I can only walk now to get to the next place and sit down.’
After entering the store, Susan asks staff for an electric cart so she can sit on it as she browses the aisles, but is told that it is out of order.
On hearing the news, she bursts into tears and says to her mother: ‘I can’t walk around this damn store. Can’t do it, I can’t walk around this f****** store.’
She heads to the nearest chair in the in-store café and sits down, refusing to move until her mother suggests putting the chair in the trolley and taking it round with them so that Susan can sit down when she needs to.
But in the same breath, when Susan gets up to walk around the store, her mother asks her what type of cakes she wants to buy.
She is then seen piling large packets of nachos and multiple large bottles of full-fat coca cola into their shopping trolley.
Back home, emotions reach breaking point and Susan is seen sobbing over how she is unable to look at herself.
She says: ‘All l I see is a fat blob. I’m just disgusted at the way I look - I hate myself.
‘My weight is getting to a point where I can’t take care of myself anymore, I live with my mother and she has to take care of me most of the time.’
When the producers talk to Susan’s mother and sister it becomes clear that that a traumatic childhood was the root cause for her weight gain, but also that her mother Nita tried to make everything right in her daughter’s life by feeding her treats.
Nita says: ‘When Susan was about four or five years old, me and her dad started fighting a lot.
‘He was an alcoholic, he would come home drunk and somebody was going to get hit, either me or Susan.
‘When Susan would get upset, I went to the store. If she wanted candy or ice cream I’d go and buy it - food was her comfort, her way of escaping.’
The situation hit fever pitch when Susan was 17, her father came home drunk one day and started to shout at his wife, before pulling out a shotgun.
Susan and her sister Stephanie stood in the middle of the pair and told their father that if he pulled the trigger, he’d end up shooting them – he left the house and her mother filed for divorce.
Nita says: ‘Susan started putting on weight and she just hasn’t stopped. She just keeps getting bigger.’
In an effort to lose the pounds Susan and her mother and sister head to a hospital in Texas to try and find out if they is eligible for weight loss surgery.
She is weighed for the first time in years and the scales clock in at 605 lbs
The Dr at the hospital tells her that she needs to lose at least 100lbs (7st ) before it will be safe for her to be operated on.
He tells the cameras that someone of her weight is at huge risk of respiratory failure if she goes under general anaesthetic.
He adds that her mother needs to stop enabling her daughter’s food habit as it is shortening her life and recommends an extreme diet of no fat and no sugar, just fibre and protein over the next couple of months.
Susan goes home and totally overhauls her diet, eating yoghurt for breakfast, eggs for lunch and salad with most meals.
She also pushes herself to go outside walking around her house and reveals that after two months she is walking further than she has done in years without needing to sit down.
They return to the hospital and she is told that she has lost 158lbs (11st) and now weighs 449.6 lbs (32st).
Susan is approved for surgery for a gastric bypass and admitted to hospital.
The surgery goes ahead successfully and Susan is told that she is expected to lose 30-40lbs in the next two months while she recuperates at home.
She leaves with the use of a walking frame and head back to her home with her mother.
The next couple of months prove hard to Susan and she claims to have no strength in her legs – when she returns to the hospital to be weighed she has lost just 2lbs.
She returns home under strict orders form the doctor to improve her weight loss but she collapses two weeks later and is rushed to hospital complaining of numbness in her legs.
After several tests, a neurologist tells Susan that she has neuropathy – extensive nerve damage that comes from being heavily obese for an extended period of time.
The symptoms are so severe that the Dr warns that she could be paralysed if she doesn’t get treatment immediately.
She is admitted to rehab for a month where physiotherapists help to build up the strength in her legs.
But after being discharged, her mother drives her straight to a drive-thru for some fast food.
A month later she has gained 6lbs and admits to snacking on fatty foods, including chips and cupcakes.
She says: ‘I cheat little but it helps me with everything going on. The key is finding balance, I just can’t overdo it.’
In an act of desperation, Susan visits a therapist to try and find out if the root cause of her inability to stop eating is her emotional damage from her childhood.
During the therapy session, she asks her mother to stop babying her and allow her to cook and clean after herself.
She says: ‘This is going to be hard, I’ve spent to long being dependent on others I’m afraid I can’t do it on my own, something always gives me an excuse not to.
'I just have to start doing it.'
A month after the therapy visits Susan’s weight reaches 392 lbs (28st), a total loss of 215lbs (15st).
Susan moves out of her house and in with her brother.
She does the chores around the house including the laundry, washing the dishes and tries to walk as much as possible without her walker.
She says: I haven’t needed it as much as I thought. I’m slowly getting back my mobility.
‘I’ve lived so long telling myself I couldn’t’ take care of myself and living in fear and excuse.
‘For the first time in my life I feel like I’m an independent person, it has been a great feeling.
‘It feels like the whole world is opening up to me and I’m actually living life.’
After 11 months of filming she weighs 340lbs, a total weight loss of 267 lbs.
She says: ‘You have to get to a place where you’re broken to be desperate enough to change.
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