Why do the grown kids of the super morbidly obese who can’t even walk across a room keep bringing them giant portions of junk food?
Bringing enormous amounts of food to one’s 900 pound parent is like bringing caseloads of whiskey to someone with liver disease.
Renee Williams weighed about 900 pounds before she died, and the TV show depicting her life at this weight revealed that she lived with her two daughters, which made me wonder:
What enablers kept bringing this bedridden, essentially paralyzed woman all the food?
An online Daily Mail article (among other sources) notes that Williams would eat eight hamburgers in one sitting.
Her eldest daughter reported that Williams would eat till her stomach hurt.
Were her daughters participating in the enabling, bringing their mother some of the junk food she’d gorge on?
960 Pound Woman, Confined to Bed for Years, Didn’t Get that Way without Enablers
When I watched Williams’ story on TLC (“Half-Ton Mom”), the topic of who keeps bringing her so much food wasn’t dare broached, but the viewer could easily infer that Williams’ daughters were partially involved, simply because they were old enough to bring her food.
Presumably, at least one adult was part of the enabling process, since the daughters weren’t old enough to drive. It’s also possible that Williams received a large percentage of food from delivery people.
However, her oldest daughter, at the time of the TLC airing, was about 14 — old enough to take a stand against allowing excess food to get near her mother, who wasn’t even able to sit up in bed.
“It is common for adult children of addicts to develop their own addictive patterns,” says David Sack, MD, a psychiatrist specializing in addiction disorders, and CEO of Promises Treatment Centers in Malibu and Los Angeles.
“Many struggle with people-pleasing, an overdeveloped sense of responsibility, and fear of rejection or abandonment, which often manifests as codependency and enabling.”
Son Kept Taking Food Orders for Severely Morbidly Obese Mother
Another TLC program focused on a man about 19 who was shown leaving the house for and returning from food runs for his severely obese mother.
His mother was able to walk short distances in the house but not able to venture out shopping.
He’d bring her bags of candy bars, fastfood and other unhealthy items in alarming quantities, totally helpless at saying “No, I will not help you commit suicide!”
What’s odd is that it was not revealed what kind of stranglehold Williams had over her daughters, or what the second mother had over her adult son, that made it impossible for them to suppress the influx of food.
The mothers were never shown throwing temper tantrums or threatening to stop loving their kids.
Dr. Sack explains, “We often see adult children make excuses for a parent’s addiction or look the other way because they don’t want to disrespect or embarrass their parent, or perhaps they feel the parent has earned the right to behave as they please. Often, they’ve lost hope that change is possible.”
