The World's Heaviest Man

Yesterday night i watched a TV documentary on the world's heaviest man: 475kg. (Actually, i now learn that the heaviest man peaked around 597kg, so it wasn't about him) The man was a blob of fat, not able to move at all, in his bed, and was just eating and waiting to die. How did he manage to get that fat if he wasn't able to get out of bed? His wife was always feeding him junk food. Not because she wanted to. Its because he wanted to, and couldn't accept anyone telling him what to do. Obesity is an addiction and a disease. Any time she would try to put him on a diet, he would get so angry, that she just couldn't hold on and would let go. Eventually, they managed to get him to the hospital and to have him drop down to 275kg before letting him go home. He had stomach reduction surgery.

Then they showed another man, who was also obese, and went through a similar process. He didn't reach 475kg, i think he was in the 350-400 range. However, the interesting thing is that he was on TV, and considered successful. However, after reaching 90kg, he prized himself with 4 hotdogs, something he hadn't had in at least 1.5 years. And just like any other addict, it started from there, and he regressed, getting even heavier than before.

This documentary shocked me. The idea of not being able to stop eating is just mind-blowing. Seeing how big one can get, how impaired and dysfunctional... This genetic disease... this hopeless body, which just doesn't learn to stop accumulating fat... and the stomach, which just gets bigger and bigger... i felt sad. Maybe because it feels like it's not really a disease: there is no little evil creature which is killing the person. Its the person itself. Now, cancer is similar too, in that its the same body cells which are growing in an uncontrolled fashion. However, it feels more like i can pinpoint it to whatever "evil" cells are growing that way. Whereas obesity, there are no cells to blame: it's the person itself, who is abusing of substances (fatty, junk food), kind of like a drug-addict; except the drugs in this case are perfectly legal and commercialized substances. Actually, it is cheaper to feed one self with junk food, than it is with healthy food.

I don't know, really, what to think about. I've been thinking about it for the past day.

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