This week the UK tabloid The Sun reported the case of a teenage girl who has become the youngest person to reach 33 stone (209kg). At only 15 years old, Georgia Davis has eaten her way into the record books, to become the most morbidly obese teenager recorded. Doctors have told her to lose weight fast or risk premature death.
She describes her condition:
“I can’t walk more than a few steps without getting out of breath and a few months ago I developed Type 2 diabetes. When I look in the mirror I feel sad and go to my bedroom and cry. I know it’s partly my fault. But it’s so hard to stop eating.”
Her diet consists of almost entirely junk food. On a typical day she consumes processed ready-meals, several sandwiches, multi-packs of peanuts and crisps, sausages, pasties, chips, chocolate and chunks of cheese, all washed down with litre bottles of Coke or pints of milk. It all adds up to a staggering 3,538 calories a day. The average 15-year-old girl only needs 2,000 calories a day and should weigh 9st 4lb.
She plans to attend the Wellspring Academy, in North Carolina, USA — which is a tough fitness and weight-loss boarding school for obese youngsters. Just like the Celebrity Fit Club, it is a boot camp to lose weight. Wellspring Academies operate nine “fat camps”, including one in the Lake District in the UK. Each child follows a diet of 1,200 calories and must take at least 10,000 steps a day. Counsellors help change attitudes to food.
Dr David Haslam, a GP and clinical director of the National Obesity Forum, said: “Georgia’s case is unique. It’s very sad. It’s important to do something to save her life.”
She is not alone though. A quarter of British boys and a third of girls are overweight. Teenage girls form the majority of the one million obese under-16s.
Full story available at TheSun.co.uk.