# How do the super obese physically eat enough food to reach their weight? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 4, 2015, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-super-obese-physically-eat-enough-food-to-reach-their-weight/729952 "2015-09-04T23:29:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2015, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-super-obese-physically-eat-enough-food-to-reach-their-weight/729952/1 "2015-09-04T23:29:04Z")
There have been people who weigh a thousand pounds, naturally at some point they became essentially totally immobile. But before this at some point they were burning calories. I’m having trouble visualizing the amount of calories a person would have to consume daily to reach and maintain this weight, unless they are essentially drinking liquefied lard or something or butter like a candy bar. If a pound of weight gain=3,500 calories consumed which is more than the daily requirement, how many excess calories would you have to eat daily to reach 1K pounds over say a decade? 350,000 calories total. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2015, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-super-obese-physically-eat-enough-food-to-reach-their-weight/729952/2 "2015-09-04T23:39:52Z")
3,500,000 total. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2015, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-super-obese-physically-eat-enough-food-to-reach-their-weight/729952/3 "2015-09-04T23:54:18Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > 3,500,000 total. Thanks it was a typo. And how do they afford it? A documentary about one guy had him living on Social Security disability, I assume he was getting food stamps too. But that isn’t a lot of money, and he mostly ate fast food which gets expensive. > **[‘World’s Fattest Man’ Paul Mason Loses 650 Pounds, Fighting UK’s NHS For Skin...](https://www.ibtimes.com/worlds-fattest-man-paul-mason-loses-650-pounds-fighting-uks-nhs-skin-removal-surgery-993512)** > > The former "world's fattest man" Paul Mason shed 650 pounds and is now fighting UK's NHS to be granted skin removal surgery. > [@](#): > > Before the weight loss, the half-ton Mason used to consume up to 20,000 calories a day, solely eating takeout food, fried foods and potato chips and getting around on an electric wheelchair, the article said. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2015, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-super-obese-physically-eat-enough-food-to-reach-their-weight/729952/4 "2015-09-05T00:01:01Z")
[http://www.kfc.com/nutrition/](http://www.kfc.com/nutrition/) Says a drumstick has 150 calories, a breast 520 but that seems kinda high as they aren’t that much bigger. You see how it starts becoming unbelievable. (I hate the short edit timeout!) ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2015, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-super-obese-physically-eat-enough-food-to-reach-their-weight/729952/5 "2015-09-05T01:25:47Z")
For the obese and (usually) the morbidly-obese, there is usually an enabler. The morbidly-obese get extremely irate when they don’t get enough food, and the enabler will always comply. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2015, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-super-obese-physically-eat-enough-food-to-reach-their-weight/729952/6 "2015-09-05T01:36:08Z")
One of my coworkers who was over 400 lbs used to eat three dozen chicken wings, a whole loaf (about 15 inches long and 5 inches in diameter) of Italian bread, and an entire pie for lunch. About $30 from the supermarket. Or an entire fried chicken with a 32 oz tub of beans, mashed potatoes or pasta salad, and a cheesecake. Also about $30. He was making about $50 an hour gross. So he was probably spending 10% of his after tax income on just lunch. When he went to the all you can eat Chinese place, you could see the horror on the faces of the staff. 10 plates of fried and/or sauced foods. He died at 32. Complications from diabetes. He seemed to not care at all. He considered eating almost an endurance sport. ---
**Author:** ![bb49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b38774/32.png) [@bb49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bb49)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2015, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-super-obese-physically-eat-enough-food-to-reach-their-weight/729952/7 "2015-09-05T01:53:25Z")
> [@Mighty\_Mouse](#): > > He died at 32. Complications from diabetes. He seemed to not care at all. He considered eating almost an endurance sport. It sounds like he died doing what he loved. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2015, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-super-obese-physically-eat-enough-food-to-reach-their-weight/729952/8 "2015-09-05T01:59:14Z")
> [@Mighty\_Mouse](#): > > One of my coworkers who was over 400 lbs used to eat three dozen chicken wings, a whole loaf (about 15 inches long and 5 inches in diameter) of Italian bread, and an entire pie for lunch. About $30 from the supermarket. Or an entire fried chicken with a 32 oz tub of beans, mashed potatoes or pasta salad, and a cheesecake. Also about $30. > > He was making about $50 an hour gross. So he was probably spending 10% of his after tax income on just lunch. > > When he went to the all you can eat Chinese place, you could see the horror on the faces of the staff. 10 plates of fried and/or sauced foods. > > He died at 32. Complications from diabetes. He seemed to not care at all. He considered eating almost an endurance sport. Did it seem to you that he actually enjoyed his food–I mean really savor it–or did he just eat it mechanically? ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2015, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-super-obese-physically-eat-enough-food-to-reach-their-weight/729952/9 "2015-09-05T02:15:15Z")
They have the same kinds of relationships with food that addicts have with drugs/alcohol. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2015, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-super-obese-physically-eat-enough-food-to-reach-their-weight/729952/10 "2015-09-05T02:31:39Z")
The part I never understand is how they keep it down. Do these people buy antacids in bulk? Just reading the lists of what they eat in a single sitting makes me feel kinda bad. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2015, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-super-obese-physically-eat-enough-food-to-reach-their-weight/729952/11 "2015-09-05T02:36:07Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > The part I never understand is how they keep it down. Do these people buy antacids in bulk? Just reading the lists of what they eat in a single sitting makes me feel kinda bad. They didn’t start out eating such massive portions, it took time to progress to 1,000lb man-sized servings. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2015, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-super-obese-physically-eat-enough-food-to-reach-their-weight/729952/12 "2015-09-05T14:13:58Z")
I remember reading about an 800 pounder. A typical meal might consist of a half pound of bacon and a dozen eggs. Since he was incapable of getting out of bed, there had to have been enabler. I once weighed 280 and I didn’t even feel I was ever overstuffed. And I walked four miles a day to my office, 4 days a week. I don’t think I could have gotten to 800 lb, but I think I could have made 400 without breaking a sweat (especially without breaking a sweat). ---
**Author:** ![sbunny8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@sbunny8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sbunny8)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2015, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-super-obese-physically-eat-enough-food-to-reach-their-weight/729952/13 "2015-09-05T15:02:00Z")
I used to be married to a woman who weighed 325 lb, so what I’m about to say is first-hand experience. When I first met her, she weighed about 220 and she told me that, over the years, her weight had fluctuated up and down between 140 and 220 and back down to 140 again. But what I saw in person is that she slowly gained about 1 pound every three or four weeks. Five years later, she was up to 325. She ate normal sized portions of ordinary food. I never saw her eat huge amounts of anything, and we rarely at fried foods or anything dripping in butter. A typically dinner for us was pasta and veggies with sauce, and some bread on the side. When we got Chinese takeout, she asked for steamed rice not fried. She never kept candy or chocolate in the house. I ate pretty much the same food she did (plus I ate candy bars) and I didn’t gain weight. The only odd thing about her diet was that she would drink several “diet” sodas per day. I’ve heard it said that diet soda can actually trigger your body’s starvation response, but I don’t know if that’s true. My best explanation for why she gained weight is #1 she rarely got any exercise (which is understandable when you’re carrying so much weight that you get out of breath just walking up a flight of stairs) and #2 there must have been something messed up in her metabolism. I realize that the story I just told doesn’t count as “super obese” but it’s easy for me to imagine a person who weighs 200 at age 15, 300 at age 20, 400 at age 25, et cetera. Such a person would only have to gain 20 pounds per year, that’s less than 1 pound every three weeks. It’s only an extra 192 Calories per day. That’s all it takes to reach 600 pounds at the age of 35. ---
**Author:** ![MLS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MLS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MLS)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2015, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-super-obese-physically-eat-enough-food-to-reach-their-weight/729952/14 "2015-09-05T21:41:11Z")
The TV series [My 600-pound Life](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2152112/?ref_=ttep_ep_tt) tells stories of people who are morbidly super-obese. A lot of the show appears to me to be shilling for one particular doctor in Texas who does gastric bypass surgery on the super-obese. However, it is interesting to see the stories about the patients and their enablers. There is almost always at least one enabler. The obese person often becomes horridly nasty if denied the food they want, and they also often whine, whine, whine about how \*hard \*it is to limit intake and increase mobility. A lot (but not all) of the time the rest of the family is also far from slim and fit. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2015, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-super-obese-physically-eat-enough-food-to-reach-their-weight/729952/15 "2015-09-05T23:03:34Z")
> [@sbunny8](#): > > I realize that the story I just told doesn’t count as “super obese” but it’s easy for me to imagine a person who weighs 200 at age 15, 300 at age 20, 400 at age 25, et cetera. Such a person would only have to gain 20 pounds per year, that’s less than 1 pound every three weeks. It’s only an extra 192 Calories per day. That’s all it takes to reach 600 pounds at the age of 35. Except that the more you weight, the more calories you need just to maintain weight. So, at first this person needs only, say, 2000+a modest 192=2192 calories/day, but after some years, he needs 4000+192, then 8000+192, etc… So the food intake quickly becomes absurdly high. A very quick calculation (hence possibly wrong) makes me think that someone eating only about 200 extra calories/day would take on “only” 40-50 pounds before reaching a plateau. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-super-obese-physically-eat-enough-food-to-reach-their-weight/729952/16 "2015-09-06T01:48:25Z")
> **[Big as Life](https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/25/AR2005062501286.html)** > > Get style news headlines from The Washington Post, including entertainment news, comics, horoscopes, crossword, TV, Dear Abby. arts/theater, Sunday Source and weekend section. Washington Post columnists, movie/book reviews, Carolyn Hax, Tom Shales.... ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-super-obese-physically-eat-enough-food-to-reach-their-weight/729952/17 "2015-09-06T02:23:52Z")
There is always an enabler required, usually a co-dependent, somewhat dimwitted SO or relative. Often the super obese person is living off some accident or similar disability stipend and sometimes the enabler is dependent on them and that income in some fashion. The super obese are often smarter and more dominant than the enablers and are quite manipulative and psychologically aggressive in getting the enablers to comply. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-super-obese-physically-eat-enough-food-to-reach-their-weight/729952/18 "2015-09-06T03:24:05Z")
In case folks don’t make it far enough into the above link, here’s the chilling bit: > [@](#): > > Once a person starts overeating, research suggests, his body chemistry may change to make shedding pounds extremely difficult, says Louis J. Aronne, professor at Weill Medical College of Cornell University and president of the North American Association for the Study of Obesity, based in Silver Spring. > > The pounds add up. Aronne, who has never met Keitz, does a quick calculation. > > Since Keitz was 18 and 250 pounds, he has gained 375 pounds, or 1,312,500 calories. That’s 62,500 calories per year, or 171 per day. > > Just 171 calories a day? > > That’s roughly equivalent to going to McDonald’s and ordering a double cheeseburger (460 calories) instead of a cheeseburger (310). Or a quarter pounder (420) instead of a hamburger (260). Or large fries (520) instead of medium fries (350). Or a large Coke (32 ounces, 310 calories) instead of a small Coke (16 ounces, 150 calories). > > Before you know it, you are supersized. It happens in tiny steps, day by day, and the enablers are roped in the same way. Before long, here is this person you love, who has lost everything in the world except what they love most: You and food. How could you take either away from them? I’m not saying it’s healthy or right, just that it’s understandable. ---
**Author:** ![choie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/choie/32/7829_2.png) [@choie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/choie)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-super-obese-physically-eat-enough-food-to-reach-their-weight/729952/19 "2015-09-06T03:40:22Z")
That really doesn’t add up–I’m kind of surprised the doctor left it with that misleading scare-tactic calculation. One would have to take in 171 _extra_ calories _over_ one’s current Basal Metabolic Rate–i.e., the number of calories needed to maintain his/her current weight. As **clairobscur** said, BMR increases as one’s weight increases (but other things are taken into consideration as well–level of activity, gender, height and age, I believe). So it’s not like a 300lb guy is only eating 2,171 calories and continuing to gain weight. As an example, take a 300lb, 5’10", completely sedentary male at, say, 35 year old needs 2,628 calories to maintain his weight. If that same man weighed 325, he’d need 3,427 to maintain. So it’s not “one small hamburger” a day. It’s “one small hamburger” on _top_ of the 3,427 calories the guy’s already eating. My math could be wrong, and I don’t think this is an exact science. But it’s not just 171 extra calories every day will get you to 600lbs in 20 years. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-super-obese-physically-eat-enough-food-to-reach-their-weight/729952/20 "2015-09-06T03:49:24Z")
Look up “feederism”. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-super-obese-physically-eat-enough-food-to-reach-their-weight/729952.md?page=2)