A 4-year-old boy in India is said to be the youngest child to get a gastrectomy after he gained almost 100 pounds. The toddler, Rishi Khatau received the $5,000 surgery after his parents feared that he was going to die if he did not lose weight. They said they tried placing him on diets, but nothing was working for their son.
The parents don't blame themselves for their son's weight gain, but what baffles me is why they were feeding him so much junk!
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Khatau was extremely overweight for his age and was already wearing a size large in adults and suffered from severe sleep apnea. He also has Prader-Willi Syndrome which caused him to gain weight due to the condition which prevents him from burning calories properly.
Doctors decided to help the family who worried about their son dying if he did not have the weight loss surgery. Things became so bad that Khatau had to be carried to the bus stop by his mother because he couldn't walk. As a result doctors performed the operation and got rid of three quarters of the boy's stomach. He now is expected to follow a strict diet of soup and juice as he continues to shed the pounds and reaches a weight that is reasonable for his age.
What concerns me is that his parents revealed the reason the boy even managed to weigh that much. "He'd beg and beg for more food. He never felt satisfied with his meals, it baffled us," said his mother, Henna. The boy apparently still wants to eat the foods he's been forbidden but his parents now teach him to share it with others to avoid eating the whole thing.
I understand parents want to do anything to keep their kids happy, but overfeeding them is NOT the solution. It's bad enough that worldwide, we are suffering from an obesity issue already, but a 4-year-old getting surgery for weight loss is not normal by any means. If Rishi suffers from a health issue that causes him to eat more than he should, then his parents should have addressed a doctor for alternative options before things got bad. He may be on a restrictive diet, but if his condition does not get under control now, he may just regain the weight when he's older. I really hope this isn't the case!
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