Did you watch this at 9pm BBC1 tonight.
Brilliant show.

Gotta feel sorry for the poor kids though who are that size.

I dont feel sorry so much for the older guy Chris though.
He dosent seem to really want to help himself much.
No wonder he is 30+ stone.

And his mam didnt seem really supportive did she.

Did you catch that drama predicting a "fat epedemic" in the near future?

On the one hand you had the National Health Service being overwhelmed by obese patients, on the other the relatives of the obese telling the doctors off for being mean in telling them to loose weight before they died of related illnesses.

Thorny issue, still seems that it's ok to ridicule the overweight these days...is that fair?

Did anyone notice the mother of the younger child put her son down.

When they went to look round the bording school they met another kid with the problem who lost 5 stone. The woman from the school said. In 3 years time you could be as good looking as him. HIS OWN MOTHER said... 'Well, not as good looking, but at least as thin'. WTF is that about. I was disgusted. She put odd little digs in throughout the rest of teh show too!

The last thing anyone needs is to be put down by their own mother!

I saw this programme and felt sympathetic towards the two children but not the older man Chris who seemed determined, despite his weight and condition to literally eat himself to death.
One thing I could not understand in the American insitute where they were controlling the childrens diets was why did they feed them hamburgers, chilli - processed food? We all know that processed foods are higher in saturated fat and as such only add to the problem of obesity. Why weren't they feeding them a healthier diet of fresh vegetables, fish and fruit? Instead they packed them full of jelly, ice cream and burgers - not the way.

Originally posted by JonJParr
I saw this programme and felt sympathetic towards the two children but not the older man Chris who seemed determined, despite his weight and condition to literally eat himself to death.
One thing I could not understand in the American insitute where they were controlling the childrens diets was why did they feed them hamburgers, chilli - processed food? We all know that processed foods are higher in saturated fat and as such only add to the problem of obesity. Why weren't they feeding them a healthier diet of fresh vegetables, fish and fruit? Instead they packed them full of jelly, ice cream and burgers - not the way.

Did they insist that the kids take regular exercise?

Originally posted by Carmine
Did they insist that the kids take regular exercise?

From what I saw they did force the children to use treadmills and go swimming.

Originally posted by JonJParr
From what I saw they did force the children to use treadmills and go swimming.

I was just wondering if they had come to the conclusion that it was tough to get the kids to chnage their diet and instead encouraged them to adopt a more active lifestyle and actually get up and burn off some energy as children are supposed to.

I watched this last night and was impressed by the portrayl of the featured sufferers of PWS, I thought that the program highlighted the difficulties these kids face and the reasons behind the condition.

Like others, I was dissapointed with the comments that the young kids mother made. Especially as she later went on to reprimand some kids for making comments about her son.

Neither me or the missus were aware of PWS before we saw this - although I did have a few misguided preconceptions. I was proved totally wrong.

sorry but i have missed something there, what is PWS?

Originally posted by moongarden
sorry but i have missed something there, what is PWS?

Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS) is a chromosomal disorder, which can affect people of both sexes and of any race or country. In the majority of cases it is non-hereditary. The main element that the programme focused on yesterday was the person's uncontrollable desire to eat excessively which results in morbid obesity. Additionally, PWS is a cognitive impairment and usually results in mild mental retardation. Other elements that the programme last night did not cover are characteristic facial features: narrow bifrontal diameter, almond-shaped palpebral fissures, down-turned mouth and Hypogonadism: incomplete and delayed puberty and infertility in women.

However, apparently PWS sufferers have an unusually high skill when it comes to doing jigsaw puzzles!

Originally posted by Lickable
Did anyone notice the mother of the younger child put her son down.

When they went to look round the bording school they met another kid with the problem who lost 5 stone. The woman from the school said. In 3 years time you could be as good looking as him. HIS OWN MOTHER said... 'Well, not as good looking, but at least as thin'. WTF is that about. I was disgusted. She put odd little digs in throughout the rest of teh show too!

I also thought she was cruel to the poor kid.
It came across that she actually resented him for spoiling her life.
What ever happened to motherly love? isnt your mum suposed to love you no matter what you look like.
No wonder he couldnt wait to get to the boarding school, to get away from her.

I think your all being totally unfair, just because the mother said you might look like him in X months, doesn’t mean she was putting him down, maybe she was showing him what he can achieve!

PS

Maybe people not understanding Chris (i.e. calling him names etc) makes him more depressed and food is the only comfort he has left.


Another thing that p.isses me off, it seems that it is socially acceptable to put anybody down for being overweight, but in reality its no different to being disabled / different colour etc etc. for some people being overweight is unavoidable.

Originally posted by JonJParr
I saw this programme and felt sympathetic towards the two children but not the older man Chris who seemed determined, despite his weight and condition to literally eat himself to death.

That seems to be the opinion of everyone I've spoken to about it at work today.

I didn't see any evidence that he had PWS, maybe just an overactive thyroid gland perhaps. Most of the kids had a particular 'look' about them, similar to the way Down's Syndrome babies do. I just didn't see that with Chris.

It was a very moving documentary and I was really pleased to see the two youngsters lose weight.

Im glad the first two kids have been losing weight.

Chris.. nuff said.
The guy is going to unfortunately eat himself to death before he is 40 and nobody is going to stop him from the looks of it.

Cant he have a stomach staple or something like that?

At the beginning of the program it did say that Chris had been diagnosed with PWS as a child... I felt sorry for him in a way though, it seemed that all he wanted to do was be like a regular lad - pubs, takeaways, etc - and he knew he shouldn't, but that his desire to overeat was too strong.

It also said that stomach stapling etc won't work because it's part of the brain that it 'wrongly wired' - even though physically the stomach is full, the brain is saying empty.

It was such as sad program.

Originally posted by Gazza
but in reality its no different to being disabled / different colour etc etc. for some people being overweight is unavoidable.
Thats not true though. For the vast majority of obesity cases it is no way medical at all - they just eat too much and exercise too little.

For some people its unavoidable, has with Prader-Willi Syndrome or various problems with metabolism, but not everybody has that.

Chris.

Originally posted by alchresearch:
maybe just an overactive thyroid gland perhaps

Tends to make you thin, not fat.

Originally posted by chillicat
Tends to make you thin, not fat.

underactive does though

Originally posted by chillicat
Tends to make you thin, not fat.

underactive does though

I am a parent with a child who has PWS.
He was actually filmed for the program but was not shown as he does not fit the characteristics that the media like to focus on.

He was diagnosed at 3 weeks, being floppy, having a low blood sugar count and not feeding.
He was taken up to special care and over the course of three weeks poked prodded and made into a human pin cushion until a sample was sent over to the genetic unit in alder hey for further testing.

The programme (which most parents with children having the condition) were let down by the pure focus of the programme on the one media element of the condition - POSSIBLE obisity.
The programme didn't mention when they were diagnosed or even that is caught early on that most things can be controlled.
They just wanted FAT kids.

The programmes approach to the only way to resolve this was FAT camps, which also made quite a few people upset.

Alexander my son, is now 5, he is doing very well size wise and to look at him in the street you wouldn't think anything was wrong. He is a normal 5 year old size, a little short but nothing out of the ordinary.

The issues with food are tightly controlled (locked kitchen, restricting access to food at all times).
Most of his problems arrise with the other elements of the condition which the programme did not divulge.
He has a reduced learning capacity, no social awareness and a diminised emotional capacity (this traits can be found in most mental disabilites).
He has no stranger danger, meaning he will talk to anyone and is a very loving child which can not be good at times (hay check the press)
He can be violent (although we try not to put up with it) and have severe tantrums, usually arround food issues but not always.

We do love him dearly but he can be VERY trying at times and as parents have also considered having him re-homed either in a care unit or boarding school like on the programme (although as parents we find this very disturbing, it is just on those very bad days).

We also have two other children (2 girls aged 3 and 18 months) whoare both fine, Alexander loves them dearly but then again he is also a boy so they can fight as normal and he hasn't gone too far (yet).

In contridiction to the programme and the nice website they published after the fact, PWS is NOT hereditary.
It is a genetic abnormality formed during conception, every child conceived has exactly the same chance of developing the condition during the complex process (approx 1 in 25000).
Men with the condition are virtually sterile, women are affected in other ways.
There was one case were a PWS woman had a child but unfortuatly that child had contracted Angel-mans syndrome which is a sister defect to PWS but in most cases far worse.

There is so much more to the condition that can not be put into words but the bare facts (like the one's we were given when we found out) can be found on the UK PWS site - www.pwsa.co.uk

If anyone has any questins I would be very happy to respond.
Rgds
Simon