A very dumb question about the morbidly obese...

Factual Questions
1

This is an exceptionally dumb question.

Ok, now that I have that out of the way. There are some people (perhaps a growing number) that are obese to the point where it affects their mobility, sometimes rendering them bed-bound.

What I want to know, is how these folks feed themselves - not how they actually consume the food - that’s fairly self explanitory, instead, a) how do they get their food, if they are unable to get around, and b) how do they pay for it.

For a) Home delivery seems like the obvious answer; however, that leads to b)

Home delivery is expensive. I imagine if it was for 3 meals a day, it would be very expensive. Further, I’m not aware of a huge number of very lucaritive jobs that can be done from home. Assuming a lack of such a job, the only alternatives seem to be either a trust fund or disability. Trust funds I will ignore, but, regarding disability, I don’t think it pays that much. So, how would a morbidly obese person on disability afford the food required to maintain their girth?

See, I told you it was dumb. I’d still like an answer, though.

2

Social Security disability comes with food stamps. How much depends on the number of people in your household. They don’t give obese people more than the usual. Of course, one would not be able to order out with food stamps. I’d think most of them have caretakers that help them with their physical needs such as eating.

3

I imagine they send someone out for them. I guess there are some that are alone, but most probably have a spouse/sibling/friend who shops for them. Also, what food tends to be the most fattening? The cheap shit like TV dinners, frozen pizzas, Top Ramen, etc.

That’s my guess, anywho.

4

Disability also comes with Medicaid or Medicare. I’m not 100% sure, but if someone were totally alone with noone to care for them, wouldn’t Medicaid/Medicare pay for it? This person would do the cleaning, shopping, and cooking, and personal care i.e. spongebaths and the like.

5

Yah - I was wondering about a home-aide type person. However, if there was a Medicaid sponsered nurse in the house, I would assume that person would prepare healthy, lower calorie foods for the person, which I would think would eliminate the problem.

I guess I’m trying to figure out how, if you can’t get food for yourself, do you get a person to feed you junk food without paying them, and if you’re paying them, how do you come up with the $$.

I recall on some crime show or another, a large man (1,000 lbs) was being kicked out by his landlord for non-payment of rent, and the landlord had resorted to having a recking crew and a crane come in to remove the man because he wouldn’t fit through the door. Obviously, in that situation, the guy was saving on rent $$, but if you don’t pay the pizza delivery guy, he just doesn’t leave the pizza, so that didn’t seem like a plausable option.

6

If you are “disabled” according to the Social Security laws, you will be entitled to Medicare after a period of two years of being disabled, and not sooner. However, Medicare does not pay for custodial care. It will pay for home health services that are not custodial if the person was hospitalized for at least 3 days prior to the care, is home-bound, pursuant to the orders of his or her physician, and only on a part-time basis for a limited time.

Medicaid is a program of the individual states, but with federal support money-wise. It is available only to those who meet the financial hardships prescribed the states and are “disabled.” (Which you would be if you are so morbidly obese you are home-bound.) Social Security disability does not involve any food stamps, but those who are eligible for Medicaid may procure them through the state.

7

In some cases it might, but not necessarily. Remember their physical activity is near zero, so they’re not going to be burning a whole lot of calories, and their metabolism has probably turned pretty slow as well, which will make it even harder for them to shed the pounds. Not to mention, that a sudden change in their diet can kill them. Also, are you going to tell someone who outweighs you by 800 lbs that they can’t have another dozen eggs?

8

Correction to my prior post. You don’t have to be disabled to get Medicaid help, but if you are also disabled and meet the financial hardship, you can get the federal Supplemental Security Income Benefits. This does not entitle you to Medicare benefits but does entitle you to Medicaid benefits.

9

Assuming they can’t get out of bed, sure, why not. What are they gonna do - throw a pillow at me? :stuck_out_tongue:

10

Uh, apparently I need to point out that you’re going to have to help them with certain bodily functions related to basic hygiene. :eek:

11

Based on the experience of a friend who has worked with the morbidly obese & their family members (and my recollection of what I was told):

People who are modbidly obese (to the point where they can barely get out of their bed) have one or more caretakers who help them get basic tasks done. Usually relatives or boyfriend/girlfriend people.

People who are morbidly obese nearly always have emotional problems in addition to their physical problems. (Food in place of love is so common enough that it’s a movie stereotype.) My friend says these emotional problems are infectious, in that they spread to the caretakers.

For example, morbidly obese people do eat a lot more food than other people. But they often are in denial about this, and make claims that their body is overly-efficient at digesting food, etc. Seldom true; a careful record will show that they eat excessively. Frequently their caretakers are also in denial about the amount of food the obese person eats.

Note that usually a caretaker has to prepare & bring the food to such a morbidly obese person. If they would follow a sensible medical diet, and only bring the person that amount of food, the obese person would start to lose weight and improve their health. But these obese people are generally experts at playing on the sympathy of their caretakers, and getting them to bring more food. If there are multiple caretakers, they get real good at playing them off against each other. (Claiming that one caretaker is ‘starving’ them, and the other needs to make up for that.) These morbidly obese people are expert emotional manipulators of others (possibly necessary, when you can barely move from your bed).

She told me that to be successful, they usually had to treat the emotional problems, or the obesity just comes back. And this involves treating the emotional problems of the rest of family, too. This is seldom a problem of a lone individual. She said that often the rest of the family is close to obese also, just not as morbidly so as the one person. Very rare to have anyone thin as a caretaker in these situations!

She also indicated that this was usually a hard problem to solve, she didn’t have great success at it. Partly because it was usually quite serious, and quite ingrained by the time it became one of her cases. And because it usually involved so many people, many of whom didn’t participate willing in treatment. Often a real tough situation.

12

I’m not sure I’m what you’re looking for as I can typically function within normal society but for the time being, I’m disabled and am also morbidly obese as I weigh over a hundred pounds over my ideal weight.

In my case, I have someone (my boss’ mother-in-law) that comes by about once or twice a week and does some errands for me, including washing my clothes (I don’t have a washer or dryer) and buying me groceries. She’s doing it for free since I’m not in any position to pay anyone for anything (I’m being forced to use food stamps due to my disability making me unable to work) and buys me whatever I ask for which is easily prepared foods like frozen pizza, fries, sandwiches, etc.

Since I’m fat to begin with, am restricted to my home (I’m medically homebound… if I leave my house for any reason other than the ones outlined by the insurance agency, I might lose the programs they’re paying for) in a wheelchair, and am eating all these high fat foods (I don’t know how to cook), my weight’s going up at a depressing rate.

It’s a bit of a battle. I feel very sorry for the people that are stuck in situations like mine for extended periods of time. I’ve only been like this for a month and with luck, will be fully healed in another month or two and be able to get back to normal but the people that can’t even get out of bed because they’re so massive have to have it rough. They have my empathy.

13

No, yer not what I’m looking for. A person who is overweight, but leaves the house on a regular basis to have a job, can move around and generally take care of themselves, causes no mystery as to how they do it.

I suppose I assumed that someone who was unable to leave their house because of size, would become rather socially isolated in a pretty big hurry. I guess I’m surprised that many of these people have a full time caretaker, or multiple caretakers.

Obviously, I’m not talking about folks like Aesiron, who’s injured themselves and is having assistance for a finite period of time. I was thinking more along the lines of the chronicly ill. t–bonham’s post was very informative. Thanks.