Almost Half a Ton

Is it exploitative to pass along the story of an extremely obese person? How could it be, if the subject voluntarily signs a contract and is appropriately compensated? On the other hand, there have been some TV programs, for instance, that did not really need to be made; some shows centering on obesity which the world could have happily gotten along without.

Before even thinking about spreading some types of news, this is what publishers, editors, and journalists would do well to pause and consider: Does the public really need to be told this story, and if so, why? Are we just going for cheap sensationalism here, or what?

In many cases, however, the motive is obviously sincere. For instance, not long ago journalist Kati Blocker wrote for UCHealth.org a very comprehensive biographical piece about one Katie Peterson, who at age 44 weighed nearly 900 pounds. Raised in a tiny midwestern town, Katie felt chronically stressed by negative emotions caused by traumatic life events. Despite having been adopted as a baby, she was aware of at least some of her genetic medical history, including proneness to obesity and heart disease.

Katie was a chubby baby and a heavy child. She was raised to believe that “it was something you were doing wrong. Obesity was your fault. It wasn’t hereditary. You ate too much.” She told Blocker,

I’ll be the first to say I have a food addiction. But at (a young) age, you don’t want to hear that. I started at age 12 seeing a therapist, my parents telling me there must be some tragic thing that happened for me to eat the way I ate.

In 2001, Katie married her first husband and gave birth to a son. She kept on gaining weight and was up to 646 pounds when she became pregnant again. For that high-risk delivery, she traveled to a neighboring state. A few years later, she traveled to yet another state for lap band surgery. She was able to lose 250 pounds in a year, but still could never get below 400.

Still, she felt pretty good, relative to how things had been. But life happened. There was a divorce, an attempt at college that failed, and another marriage. She met her biological father and began to build a relationship, but he died soon after. Other life reversals and family disasters followed, some of which caused her to feel guilt.

Following the classic tropes of eating the feelings or stuffing them deep inside, her consumption only increased. She says,

I dove into food like it wouldn’t be there anymore. I kept eating large amounts of things. It was horrible.

Blocker described Katie’s very circumscribed life, moving “with help from her then fiancé and her 17-year-old daughter” from the bed to the living room sofa, then back to bed at night. She wrote of her subject,

Like many people with a food addiction, eating made Peterson forget about life, so she’d have half of a pizza rather than a few slices. Chips and dip, cookies, candy — she didn’t care what it was.

Is it universally accepted that an addict just doesn’t care? Is it an immutable truism that a hooked person will ingest or inject anything, led on by even the faintest hope that it will put their head where they want it to be? Just throw any old substance in there, and hope for the best? Is this why so many die from fentanyl?

At any rate, the agony of existence was not purely mental. Carrying around all those pounds caused Peterson constant pain in the back, hips, and legs.

(To be continued…)

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “900 pounds and hopeless: Katie’s weight-loss story,” UCHealth.org, 01/17/23
Image by Pete Markham/Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

FAQs and Media Requests: Click here…

Profiles: Kids Struggling with Weight

Profiles: Kids Struggling with Obesity top bottom

The Book

OVERWEIGHT: What Kids Say explores the obesity problem from the often-overlooked perspective of children struggling with being overweight.

About Dr. Robert A. Pretlow

Dr. Robert A. Pretlow is a pediatrician and childhood obesity specialist. He has been researching and spreading awareness on the childhood obesity epidemic in the US for more than a decade.
You can contact Dr. Pretlow at:

Presentations

Dr. Pretlow’s invited presentation at the American Society of Animal Science 2020 Conference
What’s Causing Obesity in Companion Animals and What Can We Do About It

Dr. Pretlow’s invited presentation at the World Obesity Federation 2019 Conference:
Food/Eating Addiction and the Displacement Mechanism

Dr. Pretlow’s Multi-Center Clinical Trial Kick-off Speech 2018:
Obesity: Tackling the Root Cause

Dr. Pretlow’s 2017 Workshop on
Treatment of Obesity Using the Addiction Model

Dr. Pretlow’s invited presentation for
TEC and UNC 2016

Dr. Pretlow’s invited presentation at the 2015 Obesity Summit in London, UK.

Dr. Pretlow’s invited keynote at the 2014 European Childhood Obesity Group Congress in Salzburg, Austria.

Dr. Pretlow’s presentation at the 2013 European Congress on Obesity in Liverpool, UK.

Dr. Pretlow’s presentation at the 2011 International Conference on Childhood Obesity in Lisbon, Portugal.

Dr. Pretlow’s presentation at the 2010 Uniting Against Childhood Obesity Conference in Houston, TX.

Food & Health Resources