Half-ton Man Dies, family blames government
 

Original Source Here

Besides the picture of the 990-lb man in the article, something about this really disturbs me.

This guy was 990 lbs... and the family is blaming the government for his death. I'm not sure what to think. On the one hand... he COULD have somehow been moved to a hospital when things started getting really bad in the week before his death. On the other hand... jesus, just LOOK at him. And it apparently took him less than a year to get that way. I sympathize with the depression over the parents, but letting himself go that much... that is NOT the government's fault.

I wonder how much action these family members took to get him to a hospital before he died. If he was in bed for four months, someone had to be bringing him food.

I don't get why they would blame the government in the first place. He might be "popular" but when shit hits the wall, it's not the governments responsibility to get him the help he needs.

If the family knew he was sick, they should've just gotten the ton of lard to the hospital themselves. The family is just looking to blame someone for their stupid mistake of not getting him there earlier.

One day I want to get that fat so that I can have free rides in the shovel of a front loader.

On a side note, doesn't this put Mo0 in first place now?

I always consider the utilisation of a rag of a stick as the highlight of morbid obesity.

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y57...ragonstick.jpg

As for the matter at hand, I think it's unfortunate that the man was in a cycle of depression. That always makes issues such as eating disorders worse, tenfold. The government could probably have done something, but it's still a bit of a grey area in terms of responsibility. There's only so much you can do with a man who weighs half a ton.

Such as giving him a little less food.

But perhaps, if he was in a state of depression, he would've killed himself if his expansive "sustenance" wasn't available.

The end result is the same either way, and then the family ends up with a smaller grocery bill.

Sounds like the correct course of action to me.

Or he could himself.

Should've asked for help when he got depressed or family should've noticed and acted at that point.

Wow, that's really sensitive there. With supportive people like you around, I wonder why these things happen. Would your reaction be the same if he had been anorexic and starved himself to death, while pleading for help on TV before?

Of course it isn't the government's fault that he weighed so much. Somebody had to be bringing him the food, and it was his own maladaptive behaviour. But depression is a major factor in eating disorders, and grief makes it worse.

I feel bad for the man. He did have an illness, and did not receive proper support for it from either the medical sector or his family. I can see why there were would be physical and financial difficulties in helping him, but it was obviously possible for his family to get him out of there once he had died...so why not before? If a life is in danger, there has to be a greater joint effort to find a way.

Surprise, asshole. People don't give a fuck about folks who may or may not have a mental disorder. People...on the internet, no less.

Eat a dick. If a fat guy continues to gobble burritos made out of donuts and dies because of it, do you really expect us to do anything but lulz?

Fuck off.

Spoken like someone who's never been depressed.

See, that's the thing about depression, it's a general feeling of hopelessness. Asking for help in that state of mind feels like a rather futile gesture. He had to come to grips with the loss of both parents in the same fortnight, that's a lot for anyone to handle - not only the fat person but his entire family.

Again, they just dealt with the loss of the two parents. Aside from the typical grieving period each individual must deal with, they probably had to tend to the estate and oversee all the funerial costs. That's a lot of work, I've done it. Plus, depression isn't something that happens in one day, it's gradual and for people whose lives have been temporarily turned on end, I imagine it might be quite easy to overlook the signs of depression because it's just not a priority.

Plus, think about it - the guy was already an overeater and rarely moved from one spot. Spotting depression in this case might be just a smidge harder than your cynical mind suspects.

But he eventually did seek help. He addressed his own depression and was willing to do something about it. His government basically responded with "No, we're not gonna bother." I know it's not the government's fault that he let his condition sink so low but I also don't think he was asking for the moon. "Take me to a place where I can receive the proper attention and care" is a far cry from "Use your magic to make me skinny again!"

I guess I feel a bit poorly for him. He made a last-ditch plea and the only person who answered was the other fattie down the highway - and his answer was "Here, eat this, you'll feel better." Kinda sad.

Propped, propped, propped. I agree completely, nothing else I could say would make a difference.

Quick Question
 

Does a person become qualified to receive monetary support from the government after gaining too much weight to function normally?

I always wonder how these people afford all that food. I can't imagine all of it comes from the family in every case. What happens then?

Wow, here comes Crash Landon to play the empathy card! What a surprise!

Yeah, well I suppose I know a thing or two about asking for assistance in dealing with a debilitating health condition.

It grants some perspective.

I think the family had a case for asking for help right up until the guy got bed-ridden. After that, as he's clearly unable to get his own food, they had to be feeding him and obviously they weren't just feeding him the 1,000 or so calories a day a recumbent needs. I'm pretty sure you don't have to be a doctor to realise that when someone weighs a fucking ton, they could do with eating less yet they kept feeding him until he died. If you did that to a dog you'd get prosecuted for animal cruelty in this country so I fail to see how doing it to a person allows you to blame someone else when that person carps it. Anyway, it's not like he was unaware of his situation. The fat fuck was in the Guinnes book of records which means someone called them to show him off, more than likely a family member or even himself. I have no sympathy for fatties at the best of times, the ones that eat themselves into the grave are especially pathetic.

Isn't obesity considered a disability? Along with stupidity? And ugliness?

It is surprisingly difficult to help these kinds of people lose weight, actually. There have been a ton of ton-sized people who died by well-meaning but idiot attempts to get them to lose weight; commonly through heart attack or starvation (f'real). It's not something your familly should undertake lightly since it requires professional help, but unfortunately there's a lot of vultures who would love to popularize their diets off of the mega-fatties like this Zone Diet guy.

Anyway, the family may have a claim if they were asking for emergency transport that the government denied them, but outside of that, the guy was going to die anyway. It's pretty sad all around.

I think a major contributing factor to the amount of fatties around these days is that schools are cracking down so hard on bullying. When I was a kid, the fat kid got picked on, mercilessly, all day every day. What this did was encourage them to lose some weight so they wouldn't get picked on (Either that or point out there was someone more deserving of a kicking, normally the ginger kid). This then set in all the kids minds that being a fatty is a bad thing and as such, nobody wanted to be one when they grew up.

These days you've got all this bullshit about how kids aren't allowed to hit the fat kids or even call them names. All this does is make excuses for the chunky fucks, makes them think that it's in any way socially acceptable to be fat and does nothing to encourage them to lose weight. It's only when they grow up a bit they realise that being fat is incredibly socially debilitating and means you're far less likely to find gainful emplotyment, form meaningful relationships with anyone other than other fatties and that you'll die young and leave a blubbery, greasy corpse. By the time they realise this though they're already locked into the cycle of comfort eating and the realisation that they're going to be a social outcast forever only makes them eat more, rather than having the effect it would have if they'd realised earlier of making them, you know, actually try to lose some fucking weight.

Basically, fat people are pathetic and the faster they die off the better it is for the rest of society.

You just hurt the feelings of 95% of GFF's population.

Shin forgot to add that when you're a fattie, the kids are chucking rocks and tin cans and tree weasels at you, which makes you run away from them - hence exercise is brought into the mix.

LOL at the idea of bullies only messing with the fat kids.

Your forehead's sloping, Shin.

I'd like to see you point out exactly where I said bullies only messed with fat kids. Bullies pick on lots of people, including fat kids. Fat kids are a much easier target than many groups however and crucially, are in a position to do something to stop being bullied, lose some weight.

The ginger kids could shave their heads I guess and most of the ones I knew did just that, the kids with thick glasses coud get contacts and the fat kids could lose weight. I have a bit of sympathy for the kid who lived on a farm and got bullied for smelling of shit, there wasn't a lot he could do about that. I also felt sorry for the kid with a lazy eye, again, not a lot he could do about it. The fat kids though were and still are masters of their own destiny and deserve everything they get.

I'd appreciate it if in future you'd do me the courtesy reading what I write, not what you want me to have said.

I know what you said, Shin, but certainly you're the best troll ever (and it crossed my mind that it's the case here) if you think that it'd seem like bullies are a contributing factor to weight loss and not a contributing factor to human suffering. The fact you don't look at the symptom of the system involved, given how "do nothing" most teachers are in many areas are, the fact we believe our stupid shit children could ever properly police themselves given how fucking worthless we've progressively made the lessons they learn.

I suppose, you know, we could actually just have policy in place to charge fat kids extra for food, the space they inhabit, and then let them realize that being fat tends to not make you any friends or get you dates.... but seriously, bullies? Dude, don't be simple.

All I have to offer in the field of educational psychology is my personal experience and that is that the kids who got bullied for being fat at school when I was a kid took steps to lose weight and are now not fatties whereas these days, there's a nonsense culture of telling kids that you can't laugh at the fat kids, implying that it's ok to be fat, which, as we all know, it isn't. What you're saving them in short-term anguish, you're more than making up for by condemning them to a lifetime of social exclusion and an early grave.

The world's a pretty horrible place generally and if you let kids grow up soft they'll just end up being a pathetic drain on the system in later life. We need to break kids out of the cycle of dependence early on and make the fat fuckers fend for themselves, they'll thank us for it when they're older.

It's not bullies we rely on to teach our kids or govern them with order, it's the teachers we employ or the mentors we give them. By your logic, we should all carry guns or learn a martial art because it's our fault if we get beat the fuck on the street otherwise, instead of expecting some common human fucking decency. I mean, we're all adults, right?

It doesn't take some miserable piece of shit wrecking a person's mind to teach them lessons, Shin. You have a fucking point in that fat people shouldn't be allowed to be fat, shouldn't expect dates or jobs, or preferential treatment. But bullies don't provide order, they spit in the face of it. Again, "Free Market" socializing doesn't fucking work in the same way that "less government" or "libertarianism" don't work, because you're relying on the chance that human beings won't actively try to stretch it to the utmost limit they can get away with.

Charging fat people extra for the food they eat or the space they inhabit? Great. Only offering them manual labor jobs, and allowing the actual realities of a civilized society to dawn on them early on? That's life right there, and it can easily be facilitated by a society about people. If bullying was such a great method, why were there so many fat kids way back when? I imagine it has something to do with the fact that bullying shuts a person into social recluse rather than encourages them to obtain something they can't have. You don't have to respect a fat person, but you certainly don't need to give bullies free reign in doing the shit they do.

Bullying isn't a fucking answer, and it doesn't make kids hard, it just encourages them to lay down and fucking die because no one wants their fat ass around. That's natural order, after all. And yes, there's a difference between life's social challenges, like standing up for yourself, and a person getting stomped on by worthless little shits.

There were lots of gigantic people back in the prehistoric ages of Before Our Generation. If you're talking about a greater trend towards obesity that's one thing, but the Frosting Mammoths such as the dead guy in this article have always been with us.

Personally, I blame an all-too-human tendancy to see just how bad something can get; yes, I am suggesting that feeders are to blame for our historical Human Monuments. Not just one or two, but entire teams of them, shoveling sweet meats into the specimen's mouth like so much coal into a boiler's fire. It is no secret that being overweight was a status symbol of yore; no doubt there were races to claim the Ye Olde Fattest Man title for the realm.

I love how Shin's diet plan for a better tomorrow is based entirely upon a good, old-fashioned hazing.

It's a great plan because, as we all know, only fat people grow up to be maladjusted, resentful sociopaths.

I agree that there are occasions when someone getting bullied will further contract into their shell but let's face it, if a couple of kids calling them fatty is enough to send them hermit, they're basically destined for a life on benefits anyway so boo-fucking-hoo, where's the net loss to society?

I'm not suggesting that we abandon rules and principals in schools, far from it, anarchy serves nobody. What I'm suggesting is that we stop making excuses for weak-willed. lard arses, thereby not giving them false hope for the rest of their lives.

If you had a blind kid, you wouldn't tell him that one day he might get to become an astronaut would you? That'd just be cruel, the kid's going to work really hard at school to get the grades he needs to pick up all the doctory shit you need to get on the space programme, only to find that actually, despite his three Phd's, there's no way he can be an astronaut because HE CAN'T FUCKING SEE ANYTHING. The kid will be crushed, lose all meaning in his life, hate you forever and probably become a crack head or some shit like that.

In the same way, telling kids they can't call the fat kid names makes the fat kid think that it's ok to weigh twice as much as everyone else, that society will accept him for the value of his mind, ignoring the repulsive, blubbery exterior and inherent weak-will on show for the world to see. It's only when he gets a bit older, say high school age that the kid finds out that actually, people are shallow motherfuckers and being fat is not ok, it's fucking wrong and nobody will ever like you now. By this time, he's spent so long stuffing his porcine face with cakes and sweets he knows no other way of life and rather than taking stock of his situation and sorting his life out, he'll just go to the nearest KFC for a Bargain Bucket and cry into his fried chicken.

What I'm saying is, you can waste millions of dollars on touchy-feely psychobabble, or you can just call a spade a spade and let the fat kids know that being fat is shit. The net social outcome may be the same but my way has a slight chance of reducing the number of fatties around and your way costs a fucking fortune and achieves nothing.

Anyway, how is letting a few kids give a kicking now and then any worse social exclusion than making them pay more for food or use different seats on the bus? It's just as ostracising only it requires a mountain of administration to achieve, and kids have short memories and deal with rejection far better than adults.

If the Columbine shooters had been 900 pounds, their victims would still be alive today (unless they brought their Rascals).

No insult in snipping your words here, because I agree we need to stop allowing them to have the concessions they get. Call a spade a spade, definitely. But I do take issue with the whole "bullies" thing. Bullies help no one, they encourage nothing positive, they do nothing positive. Yes, I agree the kiddie/bitch gloves need to come off, but reality is neither harsh nor caring, it is what it is. As you said, call a spade a spade.

Again, I find it's a weakpoint to defend bullies in any shape or capacity, much less be intentionally cruel to a fat person when it isn't warranted. I've seen what happens to people, and not just fat people, when thrown in that situation. They fall down, refuse to move, and get swept by the way side. Again, I don't think anyone's advocating that natural selection take place, the part of us that has some motherfucking compassion just wants that person to realize that being fat is fucking disgusting and that there's no place for it in society.

Hazing a person into submission doesn't send that message, it just makes you realize what a piece of shit the person doing the bullying is. And again, there is a difference between being real and just being a dick.

Well I wasn't suggesting encouraging bullying so much as turning a blind eye when it happened. I agree the actively pursuing fatties with sticks would be going a little far and obviously, one doesn't want to affirm to the bullies that that kind of behaviour is how to get ahead in life (Even if it is, let's keep that a secret until people join the work force). I do think that treating fat people and kids in particular with kid gloves is morally wrong though and they should be made to stand up to their responsibilities.

Like, they've now started printing pictures of diseased lungs on cigarette packets and that's fine. I choose to smoke and I'm perfectly aware of the damage I do to myself in the process. In fact I think the pictures are counter-productive as they make you want to collect the set but I digress. Why do burgers not come with pictures of someone dying of a heart attack on the side? Why do we stop kids under 16 (Actuall, 18 now) smoking but let them eat all the crisps and sweets they want? It smacks of double standards frankly, if you're going to make steps to stop people harming themselves in one way, why allow the wanton self-destruction in other ways?

I think turning a blind eye to when that stuff happens is suggesting we don't have the capacity to look at the system and go "What the fuck is this shit?" in regard to what you just said. Because you're right, and it's just indicative of a society that wants to ignore shit until something actually goes wrong, like lurker said a few posts up and something about frozen hairy elephants.

We need to address the system, because turning a blind eye to bullies means eventually they will take it too far because they're gonna test that system because it's a human impulse to like anything else. Folks need to ask questions and look this shit in the face, rather than go "That's the way it is" and hope that life automates itself. Because it's clear that that kind of attitude results in fucking stagnant, lazy and ignorant fucks.

I had a political science teacher try to explain to me that America being in debt meant nothing because we couldn't be called out on it. Clearly her stupid ass didn't know what that meant in regard to an actually functioning society. The massive correction, just letting shit go on auto-pilot and not having an active hand in trying to suggest new ideas and what not. That's truly ignorant shit, we can't stand for it now like we stood for it then because we see where it gets us.

Things can be better than what they are, so let's think that way rather than look back for that old bullshit status quo and something that's clearly not conducive to anything but an eventual human suffering. It doesn't take much to get a person to realize they're in a bad way, it doesn't take spite or hurt. Again, reality isn't personal, it's just real.

When you get to be that heavy it's your own damned fault and the fault of those who actually helped you get that heavy.

You heard 'em, boys. Time to round up the usual suspects!

http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/737...18002d0er6.jpg

How natural selection hasn't wiped out the amount of ignorance displayed in this thread, I will never know...

Because you're stupid.

You will never know, because clearly you don't understand how ignorance that would get you killed by not knowing how to hunt for food and a lack of empathy for a really big fat guy who could have done something about it have nothing to do with one another. Add to that the fact you seem to think natural selection is an immediate, almost instantaneous thing, and I can see why you're confused. See, you don't understand what natural selection is, so it makes it hard to use in a sentence, I'm sure.

See, I could turn around and say I have no idea how your ignorant use of language has let you avoid natural selection, but I won't, because I understand how natural selection works.

Now you have something else to cry about in your journal, son. Get to it.

I can't find it but I saw this video about this guy. He was on TLC or something and they were showing how he wanted to lose all this weight and then they introduced his girl friend and they were talking about getting married and eventually having children and such. That is suck fucking bull shit that his family is blaming other people. I hate these kind of people, the kind that can't take responsibility, and like people are saying there wasn't much you could do.

Yes, I'm a bit late to this conversation but I had another instance like this kinda. I was working in a hospital and this 550+ pound guy was in the ICU because he couldn't breathe and the family was blaming and yelling at the doctors when he died a couple weeks later. wtf

While I agree the bullying may create some initial desire for the fat kid to do some exercise and lose weight or run away from the bullies, it's one of the most psychologically damaging experiences a child can go through during school.

What if the child had the opposite problem? What if it was the scrawny tiny little shrimp that was being picked on? Should she/he start drinking milk to the point where they'd puke so their bones would grow? What happens or who is it to blame if the shrimp became depressed and fell to a psychological distress point that she/he started dieting and became anorexic (or the opposite, over-eating).

Of course, the cynical response for the kid being bullied is "grow some balls and tell the bullies to fuck off."

While I agree that physical activity will do the kid better, the psychological damage that it does may even have an opposite effect than intended (i.e., the fat kid getting depressed and over-eating to deal with his depression). At that point it really isn't helping the fat kid, is it?

These people have a physical disorder. Their bodies physically cannot process nutrition properly. Some of these people eat less and still gain weight, so it's likely not a problem of eating habits or amount of exercise at that point (that is, if they are physically active and are eating properly but still gain weight). It's too late to deal with if it gets to the point if they're bedridden. The disorder has to be dealt with before that and proper health care / attention needs to be administered. In the case of the the man described in the opening, he called for help a bit too late, but at least he called for help. The fact that the people whom he called out to did not respond in a constructive manner is still disturbing.

Gloss over the thread, did we?

Shorty, honey, the instances of someone having a genuine metabolic disorder that causes them to be a huge blubbery mass, despite eating hardly anything and jogging a lot are so few and far between as to almost have gained urban myth status. It's just an excuse fat people use for being lazy, greedy bastards. "It's my metabolism, it's really slow" and I'm sure it's your metabolism that makes you drive to Burger King and stuff your face with cow sinews twice a day too right? What the fuck ever.

And yes, there is a chance that some gentle ribbing as a child will push someone into a circle of depression and ruin their life but frankly, if that's all it takes to break them then they'll have a shitty life anyway. With that little self esteem they'll never get a decent job, they'll rely on some placebo medicine to get through the day and people won't want to know them, they'll be a drain on society and we're all better off without them.

I mean yeah, let's crack down on fatties is an obvious move for society but I reckon we should crack down on weak-willed, self-esteemless pussies who can't take a bit of criticism without running to the doctor and claiming they need medication because they're depressed. Pull yourselves together, losers. If an employee came to me and said they needed time off for depression I'd say "You think you're depressed? I'll give you something to be depressed about, you're fucking fired you useless malingering cunt". Fuck depresssion and fuck fatties.

You know, I see very many applications of Shin's arguments to other arenas (since he's began expanding it into depression and self-esteem issues). And I kinda agree with unsaid proposition to tone down on all that political correctness.

We should allow all the poor people to be ridiculed and be spat on so they grow cojones get some goddamn motivation to get rich. We should call a spade a spade, a retard a retard, and an imbecile an imbecile. And not encourage people to treat "intellectually-challenged" people with kid gloves - it'll be good for them. If they should do something silly like kill themselves, it'll only be good for the human gene pool in the long run anyway.

Harsh, but that's the law of nature!

This still cannot justify whether or not bullying is used as a tactic. My god, man, you're an adult; do you really want the adult community to turn a blind eye to harmed children? And although the majority of obese people do not suffer from a metabolism disorder, it is illogical to jump to the other extreme and assume that the overweight are 'lazy, greedy bastards'. To blame society for all of the ills of its people is bad news; to ignore the role society plays is either optimistic or ridiculous (really, both).

Although I can't rightly blame the fast food companies for marketing an addictive substance that I am, well, addicted to, I can acknowledge that I live in a society that encourages it. And don't tell me it doesn't, either.

That means that if you're saying that we, as a society, needs to assert that gluttony is a sin and moderation is a virtue again, I'm all for it. And you seem, in so many ways, to be advocating that. I agree. We shouldn't have "fat appreciation" clubs or the like. But, you take it a step further. Discouraging gluttony as a character trait and bullying/harming those that exemplify it are two different things.

My family taught me that while sex was right, lust (I need to prefece it as saying "overactive libido") was a negative. (It's an unpopular viewpoint, but I don't mind it too much). I would never say we should beat the shit out of prostitutes. Looking down on sexual deviancy is not the same thing as turning a blind eye to dead hookers. Vaguely off-topic, but that would make you a horrible manager.

Eh, I just wanted to argue "what is the point of bullies damaging someone's psyche when it's the parents fucked up enough to feed them McDonald's 4 times a week, shouldn't we punish them first?" point, but you got me there.

I really do sympathize those whom have genuine problems losing the weight for whatever reason (provided they are doing everything possibly right in a healthy eating manner, of course). Those whom aren't eating properly or not making the effort and complaining, yes, that sort of laziness and gluttony should be frowned upon. Heavily.

But yeah, it still makes me sad when I see obviously obese 2 year-old children running around inside Sears with a foot-long-hotdog with mayonnaise piled on it in one hand and a 1-pound bag of Doritos' in the other. That's got to be some fucked up parenthood going on there.

At no point have I suggested that actively beating fat kids was a good idea. All I said was that if it wasn't for wishy-washy, bleeding heart types like you wanting to wrap cotton wool around kids and we stopped the misguided efforts by a lot of people to stop kids teasing the fatties then we wouldn't be in a situation where people think it's ok to be fat.

If you live in a society that encourages eating junk food then you live in a very different society to the one I live in. Anyway, eating junk food is not in itself the root cause of obesity. The problem is a simple one of taking in more calories than you burn off. Granted, saturated fats are harder to burn so you blast through all the carbohydrate in your system first which is why fatty foods require a lot more effort to burn off than decent stuff but the fact remains, vitamin deficiency aside, there's nothing to stop you eating burgers twice a day if you do enough activity to get rid of the calories. Go ahead and stuff your face with Big Macs 24/7 if it makes you happy, just try jogging to Macdonalds rather than driving there. You can blame the fast food companies for making their food look tasty in their adverts and drenching the shit in fat to make it taste nice but you can't blame them for your own inherent lack of exercise. I went to Burger King yesterday myself as it happens and had a Whopper meal. I didn't "Go large" and I had diet coke and prior to that I'd spent 40 minutes strolling around town. I also walk at least an hour every day as part of my journey too and from work and I only eat shit like that occasionally. It tastes nice, sure, but I know how bad it is for you.

If you choose to live an unhealthy lifestyle without taking steps to mitigate the damage you're doing yourself then you have only yourself to blame. Maybe if when you were younger you'd been called a few more nasty, fat-related names then you might have had the epiphany that nobody likes fat people early enough to make the lifestyle shift a bit less painful?

On a similar subject, you know the reason kids these days are basically lawless is that parents are banned from smacking them, right?

Only in those self-righteous human rights-obsessed Western countries such as Europe and America. Over here in my part of the world, you can punish your rowdy kids long and hard! Heck, the country I'm in spanks grown men too, but that's another story.