"I've always been big-boned, although I did eat loads of cakes, crisps and biscuits."

[beth]

hahahaha best quote ever. just read this article from a lady who is demanding surgery on the NHS

link: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/03/27/too-fat-to-work-33-stone-mum-nhs-gastric-surgery_n_1382032.html?ref=uk


Mum-of-six Sara Agintas weighs a hefty 33 stone, thanks to years of gorging on junk food.

But now the 43-year-old, who spends up to £200 a week on takeaways, claims she is "too fat to work" and wants a taxpayer-funded £14,000 gastric bypass on the NHS.

Mrs Agintas, who wears a 36-38 dress-size, blames her junk food habit on years of pregnancy cravings.

In an interview with Closer magazine, she admits to knocking back 12 "small" cans of lager a day when she was expecting her sixth child and complains she put on weight after each birth because she found it "too hard to diet" and says exercise "hurt."

Agintas lives with her six children, Gemma, 25, Lauren, 21, Thomas, 18, Sam, 13, Hannah, 12, and Zoe, nine and husband Halbin, 42, who works just two days a week due to back injury.

Between them they receive £17,000 a year in benefits, including £188 a month in Child Benefit, £200 in Tax Credits, £188 in Housing Benefit - plus £296 in Working Tax Credits from her husband.

She told the magazine: "I can't work because I'm too fat to fit in an office chair and can only stand for two minutes at a time.

"I can't afford a personal trainer or weight-loss surgery - I need help from the taxpayer. I know it's my fault I'm fat, but my pregnancy cravings meant I couldn't stop eating."

When 6ft Agintas became pregnant at 17 by her boyfriend of just a few months she was already weighing in at 15 stone.

She recalls: "I've always been big-boned, although I did eat loads of cakes, crisps and biscuits. It didn't put men off and I got pregnant the first time I had sex. I was happy, because I'd always wanted to be a mum."

But Sara and her boyfriend split a few months into her pregnancy and she moved into a one-bed council flat. During the year after giving birth to Gemma, she claims she applied unsuccessfully for 15 jobs.



She says: "I gave up looking for work after that. I was better off on benefits. I couldn't afford fresh food, so I ate cheap junk food. I had up to eight tins of sausages a day."

In 1990, by the age of 21, Agintas weighed 20st and was a size 24. She met a new boyfriend and, shortly after moving into his three-bed council house, had baby number two, Lauren.

Continuing to binge-eat through her second and third pregnancy, her weight crept up to 30 stone.

She admits: "I fell through the stairs in my house one day and the council had to reinforce the floor. Doctors told me to diet, but it was too hard."

But it wasn't just her own health Agintas was putting at risk. The mum-of-six admits to feeding her children the same junk food.

"They ate what I ate - pasties and crisps. I was lazy - it was easier to phone for a takeaway than cook. I gave them chips four times a week."

In 1993, she was ditched by her boyfriend "for a younger, skinnier woman" and says she turned to food for comfort.

Three years later she met bricklayer Halbin. They wed after just six months and in 1998 gave birth to Sara's fourth child Sam by which time her weight had reached a whopping 38 stone.

"After having Sam, doctors told me to diet, but it was hard. I joined a gym, but could only do five minutes on the running and rowing machines, then I'd have fish and chips afterwards."

Sara managed to lose six stone, but piled two stone back on during her next pregnancy.

Now 33 stone, the 43-year-old who suffers from arthritis, diabetes and asthma, says she is desperate to lose weight but denies she can do it without taxpayers' help.

She says: "I can never get below 30st. Only a bypass will help me."


sounds a bit like a lazy lazy lazy woman if you ask me.

[Catchy]

Oh gosh but I want to say this, right I know maybe like she says in the article it may be 'her fault' for getting like this but probably only to a certain extent. I think what people sometimes don't realise is that being obese is just another eating disorder which must be really hard for them, I don't think we should be so quick to brand these people as fat and lazy just because of things we read.

Saying that by the sounds of it she could've prevented this with a healthy diet and exercise soo, but I reckon once you go past a certain point then there's no stopping!!

[Rozi]

This is sad :( She obviously is just lazy and personally I think there is no way she should be allowed a gastric band on the NHS until she has been given serious emotional help and intensive dieting plan etcetc go all supersize vs superskinny on her

[cocaine]

'great' britain, ladies and gentlemen.

absolutely no sympathy from me. you make your bed, you sleep in it.

[Jazz]

what a silly women.

[FlyingJesus]

Binge Eating Disorder is a very real and very damaging thing, it's not always enough to just blame weakness and stupidity when it might not be the entire case. It seems like despite doctors obviously knowing she was getting huge they never thought that she might actually need outside help in order to stop her eating habits (and her weight) from escalating. The fact that she's made no effort to exercise as compensation and that she feeds her kids the same way makes me sceptical of this case in particular but even so you shouldn't just dismiss all similar-seeming people as being the exact same when the possibility of complex mental/medical problems is there. To be fair the fact that she wants to lose a whole load indicates that she's willing to give up her "freebie" lifestyle at some point and get herself back on track, which is a difficult thing to start at any point

[Empired]

I can't help but feel sorry for her, but to put your kids through that is just awful. I have heard of cases like this, but I've also heard of cases where obese mothers half-starve their children through fear of putting them through what they, themselves, have had to live with.. :(

And I thought gastric bands could only help you lose weight if you eat a healthy diet? Things like crisps and "crumbly" foods just go straight through it don't they?? :S

[,Jess,]

I feel like I should feel bad for her but I just cant stand that people think they can just get gastric bands etc on the NHS. Like some people see it as a way to avoid dieting and exercise, might not be her but it annoys me. A few months ago I was reading this story about a girl who had this disease that made her lose weight and the NHS wouldnt pay for an operation to fix it even though she is probably going to die from it. I just find it hard to have sympathy.

[Oleh]

I think this is just a case of "manning-up" and getting on with it, gastric bypasses are just a non-conscious way of telling your brain you are full, if you can't do that manually then you might as well be a gargantuan living off benefits.

[Charlie]

I don't feel sorry for her.

She may have tried hard to get a job but giving up was stupid, the fact she did meant she couldn't buy decent food so she ate junk, therefore putting on weight and then it most likely just carried on from there. The more she ate, the bigger she got, the less chance she had of getting a job because she couldn't do it cause of her weight. Plus she knocked back 12 cans of lager while pregnant? Well, that's responsible of her. It's nice that she wants to lose the weight to get a job but she can't expect a freebie due to her laziness.

[GommeInc]

It's quite an interesting article. It seems to spin on her being "too fat to work" but it has an underlining story that she wants to get back to work, which you have to admire. The only real issue here is - should the tax payer pay for her to be operated on to become healthy and able enough to work? With her weight she probably will have to be operated on to lose a lot of excess weight if she did lose some of it by moderating what she consumes and exercising - if it is possible to do that at all! It's hard to suggest what she can do, because it argues whether it is fair for the tax payer to pay for someone who put themselves in that situation, either directly (not properly looking after herself and seeking help) or indirectly (friends, family and medical professionals not intervening or noticing sooner). It's quite a dilemma, becuase you can't really say she should pay, unless she is willing to pay monthly or over time for the help she received - you cannot really force it upon her.

[jasey]

You don't have to feel sorry for her because I am very used to the mentally ill being ignored by the general population. It is clear that this woman has something wrong psychologically. Like someone already said, overeating, 'comfort' eating or binge eating are just as real an eating disorder as something like bulimia nervosa is. I know what an addiction to food feels like - it is insatiable. The difference between this woman and I is that I would purge it and this woman does not. The taxpayers shouldn't be funding her gastric bypass surgery - I don't see that helping, anyways. It might make her drop weight temporarily but she will put it back on because the problem - the psychological problem - is not fixed by some stomach procedure. She needs to see a psychiatrist and I shame any doctor who she saw that didn't recognise what was going on early enough to send her off to one.

Don't get me wrong - this article probably made most of us laugh with lines about her falling through her council flat floor, but there is a real problem here. She needs psychiatric therapy, perhaps medication and plenty of positive attention. Not everyone is born with the strong mind that most people tout themselves as having. There are two choices here - a responsible doctor and psychiatric team can help this woman become healthy or we can laugh at her for being a sow and watch her die down the road from complications of her disorder, whether it be directly from obesity or indirectly through something like suicide. She is in my thoughts.

[Grig]

"I got pregnant the first time I had sex. I was happy, because I'd always wanted to be a mum." is another thing of what's so wrong with society today. Not thinking about it and just doing that. This woman is just too mentally lazy and is trying to take the easy way out.

[dbgtz]

You don't have to feel sorry for her because I am very used to the mentally ill being ignored by the general population. It is clear that this woman has something wrong psychologically. Like someone already said, overeating, 'comfort' eating or binge eating are just as real an eating disorder as something like bulimia nervosa is. I know what an addiction to food feels like - it is insatiable. The difference between this woman and I is that I would purge it and this woman does not. The taxpayers shouldn't be funding her gastric bypass surgery - I don't see that helping, anyways. It might make her drop weight temporarily but she will put it back on because the problem - the psychological problem - is not fixed by some stomach procedure. She needs to see a psychiatrist and I shame any doctor who she saw that didn't recognise what was going on early enough to send her off to one.

Don't get me wrong - this article probably made most of us laugh with lines about her falling through her council flat floor, but there is a real problem here. She needs psychiatric therapy, perhaps medication and plenty of positive attention. Not everyone is born with the strong mind that most people tout themselves as having. There are two choices here - a responsible doctor and psychiatric team can help this woman become healthy or we can laugh at her for being a sow and watch her die down the road from complications of her disorder, whether it be directly from obesity or indirectly through something like suicide. She is in my thoughts.

To be frank, I would have agreed with this if she didn't quit working to be on benefits instead.

[jasey]

To be frank, I would have agreed with this if she didn't quit working to be on benefits instead.

Oh, yeah. I totally agree with you there - I am not British and certainly don't understand how the social welfare system works there but I think that quitting just because it is 'easier' to collect taxpayer money is very wrong. That is water under the bridge, now, though. Her story is out there and I beg that someone makes it clear to her that something is wrong in her brain if she doesn't already realise this and subsequently helps her mentally or leads her to help. I assume her husband is just as messed up if he let her be like this. You don't let people you care about ignore all the wake-up calls she had and continue to slowly kill themselves.

I don't want to make judgements on the severity of her case (no matter how severe this article makes it out to be) because I have never met her nor am I a psychiatrist. That being said, I don't think she should be on benefits. She should probably be in an inpatient mental health centre!

[dbgtz]

Oh, yeah. I totally agree with you there - I am not British and certainly don't understand how the social welfare system works there but I think that quitting just because it is 'easier' to collect taxpayer money is very wrong. That is water under the bridge, now, though. Her story is out there and I beg that someone makes it clear to her that something is wrong in her brain if she doesn't already realise this and subsequently helps her mentally or leads her to help. I assume her husband is just as messed up if he let her be like this. You don't let people you care about ignore all the wake-up calls she had and continue to slowly kill themselves.

I don't want to make judgements on the severity of her case (no matter how severe this article makes it out to be) because I have never met her nor am I a psychiatrist. That being said, I don't think she should be on benefits. She should probably be in an inpatient mental health centre!

I don't think you got what I was referring to. The fact that she quit work shows how lazy she is. The fact that she still drank during pregnancy shows a lack of care, I don't even think the most mental of mothers would do this personally. The fact that she knew pregnancy gave her cravings and had 6 six children, then blaming it all on pregnancy could show lack of care, laziness (child benefits = no work) and her avoiding the fact it is all her fault. She knows full well it is but wants to make up excuses, theres no mental illness about it. Then her going and feeding her children the same crap is also stupid, if she knows how horrible being that obese is why would she put the problem onto her children aswell? And then there's the fact she wants taxpayers to fund an operation which would supposedly make her reduce weight (which I imagine it would, just not sure how much) of which this whole time she has been scrounging off the taxpayer and is now getting worried that she may not be better off due to the benefit cap, therefore she needs to get a job to get more money, therefore she would need to lose weight to get that job.

Actually I'm just re-reading this whole thing properly and I take back what I said, this all sounds like a very lazy woman.


I know it's my fault I'm fat, but my pregnancy cravings meant I couldn't stop eating.
What a complete contradiction. The only way she would lose weight is if she finally realised she's the one eating the massively excessive crap, not pregnancy, not addiction, not any other reason, just her will.

[Metric1]

R U TALKIN BOUT ADELE ??????

Edited by Chris (Forum Super Moderator): Please do not make pointless posts!

[jasey]

She knows full well it is but wants to make up excuses, theres no mental illness about it.

I don't mean to sound haughty at all, but you don't understand the way this type of mental illness works on the brain if that is what you believe. I agree with you - she does make a lot of excuses. So did I - no one wants to admit they have an eating disorder or mental disturbance. There is a huge stigma about it. I thought it was hard to say "Hi, I'm Jason and I have bulimia nervosa," to people but to think of being over thirty stone and saying "Hi, I'm Jason and I binge eat and overeat," is even more scary. Saying you are underweight with a disorder that causes this and having the ravaged, skeletal frame to match usually evokes sympathy or a wish for 'getting better' from the general population. Because so many people are overweight, you wouldn't get the same response from a sample of citizens. You will get people calling you lazy, fat and careless about taxpayers.

I do not support her getting a stomach surgery at the cost of the taxpaying citizens. This will not help her - it is akin to taking a car that has been in a nasty wreck and giving it a new coat of paint and new body so people will think it is fine. There is still damage to the motor and other parts inside and that will lead to the car getting in the same trouble it was in before. She will lose weight at first but, because there is a deeply-rooted mental issue in this woman's brain, it is certain she will not maintain health even if it becomes harder for her to eat a lot.

What you see as 'lazy' is really 'broken' - a very damaged woman. The only way she can become healthy is if she checks in to some psychiatric care (which I hope this news story will ensure). She probably needs medication for the time being to control her impulses just like someone with Borderline Personality Disorder may take medication to control their self-destructive impulses (reckless sexual behaviour, self injury and so on). It comes from the same part of the brain. I am not a psychiatrist, again, but I have been through all of this and I implore you to really think critically about this case. She has made a damned lot of mistakes and is not acting like a sane human at all. Do you really think that can be tossed up to laziness or do you believe that this woman probably has a mental illness that affects, as you call it, her 'will'.

This is a cry for help.

[-:Undertaker:-]

If you want an expensive National Health Service where you have collective responsibility for other people, in other words enslavement to everybody else, then you cannot complain about the likes of this woman along with the millions of others like her who do not take care of themselves and expect others to pick up the tab when something goes wrong. The same applies to the vast majority of those who are sexually promiscuous, and, who as a result of their foolish behaviour require very expensive drugs for the rest of their lives which the rest of us have to pay for despite being responsible ourselves.

The principle is whether you think people have a right to the money of others (healthcare), if you do then you ask for cases such as this to arise because of the absence of personal responsiblity in our society.

[GommeInc]

What a complete contradiction. The only way she would lose weight is if she finally realised she's the one eating the massively excessive crap, not pregnancy, not addiction, not any other reason, just her will.
Technically it isn't because it was her pregnancy and not anyone elses :P She still recognises it was down to her excessive amount of eating possibly brought on by her pregnancy. She still recognises she needed more self-control before, during and after. The gastric band is completely pointless if she cannot handle self-control, which is something we may possibly agree on.