Obese teenager has to be cut from her home

Emergency workers in Wales, UK, had to partially demolish a house and build a scaffolding bridge into the house of a 63 stone (400kg) teenager, so that ambulance staff could get her out of the premises and over to a local hospital for treatment. In something reminiscent of the movie Wall-E, the girl Georgina Davis had grown so large it was impossible for her to leave the house by normal means. A team of fireman, builders and scaffolders worked tirelessly for eight hours, removing a part of the first floor wall of the house, and constructing a bridge back to the road, so that she could be removed from the bedroom she'd been confined to for several months. Friends and neighbors commented that her weight gain had turned exponential since a year ago, when she only weighed in at 45st (286kg). People are starting to ask how her problems we allowed to spiral so far out of control. David Haslam, a Hertfordshire GP with a special interest in obesity and cardiometabolic disease, consultant at the Centre for Obesity Research at Luton & Dunstable Hospital, and clinical director of the National Obesity Forum is quoted in the Guardian newspaper saying: "It is, obviously, an astonishing case, probably unique ... this is severe and complex obesity. You can no longer apply the normal logic. Other factors are at play here; profound psychological problems. This is not just someone who has trouble controlling an impulse to snack." Georgina has been in the news before. Back in 2008, when she weighed only 33st (210kg), she was told to lose 20st or she would most likely die. Taking the warnings to heart, she won a weight loss scholarship to a heath camp in North Carolina, and while on a strict 1,500 calorie a day diet, managed to lose nearly 15st. At the camp she was guided by behavioral coaches, food psychologists and fitness trainers. Although initially suffering from type 2 diabetes, she was cleared of her problems and even appeared on good morning America. Sadly, Georgina was not able to maintain her discipline once she returned home. Her father died of a heart attack when she was very young. Lesley, her mother, takes care of her, but suffers herself from a heart condition and severe arthritis, while her step father Arthur, 71 suffers from lung cancer. Within two years, she'd gained all the weight back again, and was quoted in the Sun newspaper as saying, she had help in the US eating only in a controlled environment but : "...Back here ... I felt alone. My parents weren't doing it with me at home, and my friends weren't doing it at college. I know I have no one to blame except myself. But I don't know how to change things." Doctors say that her situation is unique, and obviously she didn't get the support she needed to maintain a healthy weight. The problem is with all that extra body mass, the heart simply can't manage to pump enough blood around the body, and the person dies of heart failure. Her best option would most likely be bariatric surgery, where a medical device is implanted around the stomach, and or a part of the stomach is removed to make it smaller. Long-term studies show the procedures cause significant long-term loss of weight, recovery from diabetes, improvement in cardiovascular risk factors, and a reduction in mortality of 23% from 40%, although a Veterans Affairs (VA) study found it of little use in elderly patients, Georgina being young is more likely to benefit. It's clear from her 2008 efforts that Georgina is not entirely a lost cause, but the question has to be asked, how she was allowed to gain so much weight. Experts say that to put on that that much extra body mass, she must have been eating upwards of 10,000 calories a day, and the super market bill alone must have been tremendous.