Locked up for being too fat

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http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common ... 63,00.html

I saw a program with this guy, and some others with the same condition, a couple of months ago.

He described his condition as a food "addiction", which it patently isn't, it's the brain's inability to register fullness. He seemed to think that he could get over it as an alcoholic could control drinking.

I hate the thought of people being sectioned for various conditions, but really, this guy seems to need a very strong external moderator to stop him eating. In the program he was living in supported housing, with care workers, but as soon as he went out he went to shops to buy food. And not fruit and veg either, he was buying pure crap.

I do find the 'obesity epidemic' uh shocking, when it's the whole family, you know - all of them grossly overweight, a life of junk food and inactivity. I feel like I'm living in some other era. It's weird.

I don't think this guy is being "punished" for being fat. But its not easy to klnow what to do in a case like this. He has a lifelong and incurable condition that compels him to overeat, its not just a matter of learniong self control.

A few years ago there was a lady living in the apartment below mine who told me she had an adult daughter with the same Prader-Willi syndrome. (this young lady also had mild learning difficulties and had been in care because her mother could not look after her adequately) The mother told me that her daughter was grossly fat, but with supervision seemed to be learning to control her problem. Well, at some point the social workers decided she was well enough to try living on her own (with some help) and they alotted her a small bungalow to live in. She was delighted to have a little home of her own. The problem was though that as soon as she was left to her own devices, she began again to eat and eat ...she spent all her money on food and when her money ran out, she simply started sltealing food from shops. In the end the social workers had to take her little house away from her and take her back into the care home. They did not do this to punish her or to be unkind: they were (her mother told me) simply trying to save her life. She was so overweight that it had affected her heart and her doctor had said she was at risk of a massive heart attack that could kill her ...if her eating was not controlled. She couldnt control it herself. But her mother said she was distraught at losing the little independence she had tried.

Glenn