Sharon Mevsimler

This weekend just gone, the fattest woman in Britain, Sharon Mevsimler, died of a heart attack aged 40. She had been large for some time and had been receiving medical attention including bariatric surgery.

Why did she have a heart attack? Was this simply that her body could no longer support the weight? Were her arteries so clogged as a result of eating too much? Or was it the gastric bypass operation? And what do the comments from the public tell us about the attitude society has towards obesity and how does that link with Sharon’s treatment?

Firstly, let’s look at a few of the facts. Sharon weighed between 40 and 45 stone (560 to 630 pounds). She had been receiving care at Broomfield Hospital, funded by the NHS. The hospital will not state what treatment she had been receiving, due to patient confidentiality. Sharon had been told by doctors to lose weight or risk an early death in August 2007. In 2008, she had had a gastric bypass operation and had subsequently lost weight.

Then things become a little less clear. In February of this year she was at a care home in Springfield, Essex. According to a report on “This is Total Essex” dated July 22nd, she had been rumoured to have had a gastric band fitted. As stated before, there is no definitive statement around what treatment she did receive.

The facts become more tragic. Sharon was not overweight in her 20’s but started over eating while suffering from post natal depression. She felt that the NHS had not provided her with adequate treatment, despite the operations and hospital care. Sadly her family are said to have smuggled in food for her.

How can anyone feel they’re not receiving adequate treatment when so much money and time had been invested in them? Surely this is a pointless waste of resources? This certainly seems to have been the theme for the majority of comments posted on various new sites about Sharon. They make sobering reading:

“no sympathy”
“good riddance”
“big fat waste of space”
“you people make me sick”
And the popular misconception;
“obese people put themselves in that position through intense greed”

At a time when we are in a recession and health services are being cut in order to help reduce the national debt, it seems us Brits are reverting back to a Stone Age mentality. We want to conserve precious and scarce resources and appear happy to push one who appears to be a drain on these out to die. Pack animals will do this. Ancient societies did this, and we learn about them in school and are taught that we are more civilised than animals and ancient societies in the modern age. It would appear not.

A perusal of the NHS website about obesity reveals the focus of the NHS’s approach to treating obesity - diet and exercise. It’s a strong focus. If that fails, it will put you on drugs. If that fails, it will operate on you. It is all about restricting the food intake, ensuring that calories are burned off. I don’t dispute this will lead to weight loss, and I agree that a better diet and more exercise is something just about all of us could benefit from, regardless of size. What the NHS fails to address is the cause of the overeating. There is a mention of the psychological effects of being obese, but often these are the very things which lead to overeating in the first place. I would be very interested to know what treatment Sharon Mevsimler received for her post natal depression. It would appear it is here that the NHS failed her.

When it became obvious she was gaining weight, who asked her why she was over eating? Who pointed out that there might be a link between her depression and the over consumption of food? Or was she just encouraged to “diet and exercise”, thereby adding another instruction onto her. As we have seen from the selection of comments above, condemnation for the overweight and obese is rife. At a time she needed understanding, society condemned her, and the NHS put her on a diet. The message was clear “there is something wrong with you and you need to do something about it and until you do, we are going to condemn you”.

I support fat acceptance. I feel we should be focussing more on health than on weight. I can’t deny, however, than Sharon Mevsimler’s weight was a significant health problem. I can well imagine her heart attack was caused either by clogged arteries or the operation, probably a combination of both and then some extra factors. I’m not a doctor, I’m a writer. I just wish that we could be a bit more compassionate and understanding about the root causes of over eating, rather than condemning the fat person once the damage is done.

Among the mob mentality comments there were some glimpses of humanity, of compassion, of that which sets us apart from animals and ancient civilisations;

“those of you who were mean should hang your heads in shame”
“poor woman”
“rest in peace”
“attacking a bereaved family … reveals a catastrophic absence of compassion”
“I hope you’re in a better place”
And a salient point it would do us all good to absorb, regardless of our weight:
“you could die of a heart attack tomorrow, plenty of otherwise healthy people do”

The only bad news about these comments? They were all rated as bad, given the thumbs down. Today, I am not in the slightest bit proud to be British. I am disgusted by and ashamed of the backward, pack like mentality of some of my compatriots.

Sharon Mevsimler, I hope you have finally found the peace you were misguidedly looking for within food. To the rest of us still living here, I hope we find the compassion one day for people who turn to food for comfort, and in doing so help them put down the knife and fork and find happiness while still living.