did anyone else see this little 5 year old on inside edition lastnight. It was the sadest thing I have ever seen in my life... she is 5 years old and 200 lbs and can hardly walk.... it upsets me to think that the parents of this child are sitting there watching their child get bigger and bigger... she weighs more than alot of adults... she must be at such high risk of life threatning diseases like diabetes and heart disease,,,, it is sad...

I bet this is the one that is going to be on dr. phil on monday. I saw a promo about it yesterday. They are going to be talking to the parents of this little girl and also another child. Might be worth watching.

out of my mind right now...please leave a message...cat

I truly believe if they rule out a medical condition for this child then the parents should be charged with neglect.

One of my stepdaughters weighed 90 pounds when she was six years old. I realize that's a long way from 200 but it's still very abnormal. We couldn't find clothes to fit her without extensive alterations. Other kids teased her mercilessly. This was her mother's logic (expressed to my husband, and she was SERIOUS): it's all your family's fault because your mother is fat and one of your sisters is fat, so Kathy gets the message that it's okay to be fat and she won't try to lose weight. Of course, the same woman would call my house when the child lived with us and scream bloody murder because we wouldn't give Kathy "choices" when mealtime came around. Kathy's idea of an alternative dinner menu was pancakes (swimming in butter and syrup) or French toast (ditto the butter and syrup). The good news is that Kathy is now 40 years old and no longer overweight. The bad news is that she's a meth addict. Her drug addiction, according to her mother, is the result of her unhappy childhood - not the part during which she raised her, I'm sure. It was probably the pancakes and French toast thing that did it. My bad.

This is a terribly sad story. I can relate to the kid because I was one of those kids who matured at an abnormally young age. I had my first period two months after I turned ten and by the time I was 11, I had reached my full height, 5 ft 6, and was menstruating monthly. Ugh! Because my parents were both comparatively short, slender, and were very elegant brunettes I felt like a giant blonde Baby Huey. And remember that at the time I was growing up the received wisdom was that kids kept growing until they hit 16. I felt very freakish indeed and I was a very, very unhappy child.

Of course eventually all the other kids caught up with me and in many cases surpassed me. And I finally lost my baby fat. This did not, however, remove the terrible emotional damage that I suffered because I suffered through an atypical growth spurt. Though I was a normoloid until I hit menopause I never really lost the sense of being a great big giant fat grrl. The psychological damage for a young person who finds her or himself marginalized by virtue of being clothed in a physical envelope which does not conform to the norm is terribly painful.

When I started gaining post menopausal weight I got into the habit of morbidly joking with my GP about going onto the E(cstasy) diet. She would twitch with horror, I would snicker, and then I would reassure her that I had no intention of hauling my carcass off to a rave. This got to be a regular routine for us.

Nevertheless, I can understand why a younger, less ironic, and more emotionally engaged individual would turn to the world of drugs as a method of sorting out the messy business of weight issues. Drugs promise possible emotional oblivion to this business of emotional pain and they also proffer the hope of weight loss as well. Drugs are very charming for folks who find themselves in extremis. This is why people end up goofing with drugs in the first place, isn't it?

I saw today that Dr. Phil is going to solve this problem. So we don't need to worry.

This is a terribly sad story. I can relate to the kid because I was one of those kids who matured at an abnormally young age. I had my first period two months after I turned ten and by the time I was 11, I had reached my full height, 5 ft 6, and was menstruating monthly. Ugh! Because my parents were both comparatively short, slender, and were very elegant brunettes I felt like a giant blonde Baby Huey. And remember that at the time I was growing up the received wisdom was that kids kept growing until they hit 16. I felt very freakish indeed and I was a very, very unhappy child.

Ditto for me. I started my period the day I turned ten. I also started getting quite buxom, at least for a 10 year old. I also hit my full height, wich luckily only turned out to be 5'3". I was always a quiet child, and being so different from my other classmates definitely seemed to isolate me even more. I was experiencing suicidal fantasies within a couple of years. I think I would have probably at least attempted suicide if I had been a little stronger emotionally at the time. It's ironic: I was too weak-willed to attempt to kill myself.

Just because the medical profession may have already ruled out a medical cause for this child's abnormal size, does not mean that she's just overeating and that's all there is to it. Anyone who believes that is an ass.

Obesity and related disorders are not just about loss of self-control. We may be in the infant stages of being able to understand this very complex problem, but hopefully one day some of the keys can be unlocked and the lap band and other extreme measures that people take to be "normal" will be passe.

Can you even imagine the trauma this child is having to endure? Going on the Dr. Phil show to have her parents confronted and having plain-spoken Dr. Phil put in his two cents, with his audience cheering him on, could be very detrimental to this family. I hope that it doesn't turn out that way. I usually think that Dr. Phil is spot-on with his assessments. However have any of you tried to read his book and commit to it for weight loss?

BJean, this isn't directly at you, don't take it that way... it's just a little vent because Dr. Phil gets on my nerves. Dr. Phil is accurate with his assessments, as are 95% or more of people with an advanced degree in clinical psychology. What he does isn't magic, it's just an understanding of what motivates people and fundamental behavioral reactions and drivers. Greatly simplified there, for sure. People eat him up because he's confrontational and self-righteous.

Just because the medical profession may have already ruled out a medical cause for this child's abnormal size, does not mean that she's just overeating and that's all there is to it.

The doctors may have missed something, too. If any of you have ever talked to Vinesqueen, you know that she has Cushing's disease. In many cases, Cushing's is misdiagnosed or the patient is told that nothing at all is wrong with them. In kids, it shows up as extreme obesity and short stature, among other things.

Ditto for me.

Yup yup, me too. I started having irregular periods when I was 9, and had full blown regular cycles by 11. I never got buxom though. But I was 5'7 at 12 years old. I'm between 5'10 and 5'11 now. I used to go somewhere with my father when I was 14 or 15, and people would refer to me as his wife. Creepy!

Wheetsin: Why would I take umbrage to anything you said about Dr. Phil? I agree wholeheartedly.

I saw today that Dr. Phil is going to solve this problem. So we don't need to worry.

:funnypost:

So did the kid have Prader Willis?

My cousin does. Its a horrible thing.

I didn't watch the show either. Did any of you? Did you think it was helpful for the family? Did Phil come up with anything helpful?