Sunday 4 March 2012
World's fattest Man
Lying in his reinforced bed, 58-stone Keith Martin yesterday defended the estimated £50,000 a year he costs the taxpayer – by comparing himself to others who receive help, such as smokers or injured rock climbers.
Believed to be the world’s fattest man, the bed-bound 42-year-old cannot even roll over on his own.
He is visited by seven carers a day, who wash and change him in two shifts, plus two nurses every other day who tend to his bed sores.
Despite the huge drain on public funds, Mr Martin, who has been unable to work for more than a decade, said: ‘It’s either that or I would end up dead. Until people have lived like it, they can’t judge.
Some people need help. Smokers get help, rock climbers get help if they get injured. Some people have bigger problems than others.
‘I am trying to get my weight down. Hopefully it won’t be too long.’
Mr Martin, who has outgrown his size 8XL clothes, is hoping to have a gastric band fitted but has been told he must lose half his weight before that can be done.
Speaking in his ground floor bedroom in his council house in North London, he said: ‘I blame myself, I don’t blame anyone else. It was my fault, I am the one who ate the food. No one held a gun to my head and made me. I hate what I have done to myself.’
He was a normal weight and used to enjoy cycling until his mother, Alma, died when he was 16. Then he began binge eating and drinking, and started to balloon from 12 stone to his current life-threatening proportions.
‘I let myself go,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t comfort eating, I just didn’t care. I got so bloated on sausages, bacon and roast dinners. I just ate whatever I felt like.’
His parents had separated when he was small. One of eight children growing up in Hendon, he rarely saw his father, Henry, a hospital porter, who passed away within a couple of years of his mother.
The teenage Keith left school soon after his mother’s death with a few CSEs and worked as a warehouseman and labourer until his weight, and the resultant lack of mobility and breathlessness, made it impossible.
Taunts of ‘Dumbo’ about his size from passersby in his younger days failed to curb his appetite, and by 2001 his weight resulted in him being taken to hospital for the first time after he returned home and ‘felt completely knackered’.
‘Since then the only times I’ve left home have been in the back of a van to move to this house when we were rehoused or in an ambulance to go to hospital,’ said Mr Martin, who is 5ft 9in but has a 6ft waist.
He has been back in hospital several times since, and has also been diagnosed with depression and had heart problems.
A specialist team which uses £90,000 adapted ambulances designed to transport plus-size people is needed to move him. Up to eight ambulance officers manoeuvre him from his bed to the ambulance by stretcher or a special bag which can be used to drag him along the floor.
Believed to be the world’s fattest man, the bed-bound 42-year-old cannot even roll over on his own.
He is visited by seven carers a day, who wash and change him in two shifts, plus two nurses every other day who tend to his bed sores.
Despite the huge drain on public funds, Mr Martin, who has been unable to work for more than a decade, said: ‘It’s either that or I would end up dead. Until people have lived like it, they can’t judge.
Weighty problem: Keith Martin, who eats eight hotdogs for breakfast, is putting extra strain on the NHS
‘I am trying to get my weight down. Hopefully it won’t be too long.’
Mr Martin, who has outgrown his size 8XL clothes, is hoping to have a gastric band fitted but has been told he must lose half his weight before that can be done.
Speaking in his ground floor bedroom in his council house in North London, he said: ‘I blame myself, I don’t blame anyone else. It was my fault, I am the one who ate the food. No one held a gun to my head and made me. I hate what I have done to myself.’
Record breaker: Mr Martin, pictured, has taken the crown of heaviest man on the planet from a 90-stone Mexican who went on a diet and slimmed down to 31st 6lb
Incapacitated: Eight ambulance workers are needed to lift him into a reinforced vehicle for regular hospital visits
‘I let myself go,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t comfort eating, I just didn’t care. I got so bloated on sausages, bacon and roast dinners. I just ate whatever I felt like.’
His parents had separated when he was small. One of eight children growing up in Hendon, he rarely saw his father, Henry, a hospital porter, who passed away within a couple of years of his mother.
The teenage Keith left school soon after his mother’s death with a few CSEs and worked as a warehouseman and labourer until his weight, and the resultant lack of mobility and breathlessness, made it impossible.
Heavy: Mr Martin says his life of excess was triggered by the death of his mother when he was a teenager
Larger than life: Specialist ambulance crews are called to care for Mr Martin, who is too big to look after himself
Trimmed down: Manuel Uribe's weight has dropped from 90st to 31st after going on a diet
‘Since then the only times I’ve left home have been in the back of a van to move to this house when we were rehoused or in an ambulance to go to hospital,’ said Mr Martin, who is 5ft 9in but has a 6ft waist.
He has been back in hospital several times since, and has also been diagnosed with depression and had heart problems.
A specialist team which uses £90,000 adapted ambulances designed to transport plus-size people is needed to move him. Up to eight ambulance officers manoeuvre him from his bed to the ambulance by stretcher or a special bag which can be used to drag him along the floor.
HIS TYPICAL DAILY MENU
- Breakfast: Keith Martin typically starts the day with eight hot dogs and four slices of bread, or a pile of ham sandwiches followed by coffee with sugar.
- Lunch: A selection of chocolate bars, cakes, a packet of biscuits plus more coffees with sugar.
- Dinner: Two whole roast dinners with all the trimmings, or 16 sausages plus a family-sized bag of oven chips washed down with coffee.
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