DESPERATE MUM CAN’T GET NHS I feel a slave to my weight ..I just want to get some help and be normal
A BOY aged just 10 who weighs 17 stone fears he faces death if he cannot beat his food addiction.
Terrified Kyon Fritz Marriott, who is believed to be Britain’s most obese primary school child, said he feels like a “slave” to his weight and his out-ofcontrol eating.
He is afraid to go outside and is in the grip of such helpless cravings he routinely binges in his family’s bathroom on crisps and chocolate he has stolen from the kitchen.
In an anguished plea the lad, who stands 5ft 1in and has a 47in waist, says: “I just want to be a normal 10-year-old. I just want help.”
But his desperate mother accuses the NHS of letting him down and says shrinking funding means he won’t get the help he needs to save his life.
Mum Nadine wants Year 5 pupil Kyon to attend the nation’s only residential weight-loss camp, MoreLife.
But despite widespread concern over soaring childhood obesity, Government cuts mean not a single child has been referred to the £4,000 scheme on the NHS in over a year.
Instead Kyon has been told to wait two years for surgery which will cost the NHS more than twice as much.
Last night experts warned that the shocking case is a symptom of a “national health crisis”.
Nadine, 44, who claims Kyon has been taunted and tormented by other kids for years, said: “I am scared for my child. I am scared that if obesity doesn’t kill him, the bullies will.
BULLYING
“I don’t understand why the NHS will fund expensive surgery but they won’t fund the psychological help he needs. Who knows what state he will be in by the time he is 12?
“I live in fear that if his weight doesn’t destroy his health he will end up stabbed or beaten to death by the bullies who are making his life hell.”
Kyon began piling on weight when he was only seven as a result of teasing at school. A vicious cycle of bullying and comfort eating followed.
He said: “People at school call me fat boy, burger boy or Homer Simpson. They kick and headbutt me.
“I feel like a prisoner. I can’t go out and live a normal life.”
Kyon’s plight comes after a report last month revealed that one in 25 British 10 and 11 year olds are grossly overweight. There are currently 2.5 million obese children in the UK.
The treatment options offered to Kyon will raise serious questions over the way the health crisis is being dealt with by the authorities.
Doctors say he will be offered a bariatric op, which costs the NHS up to £10,000, after he turns 12.
But childhood obesity expert Dr Rangan Chatterjee, GP and star of BBC1’s Doctor In The House, said bariatric surgery does not tackle the root cause of obesity in kids.
He said: “Surgery is like putting a band-aid over the problem. It may get Kyon’s weight down but it’s not helping him in the long term.
“Any therapy needs to take a 360-degree approach to the problem and people need to be dealt with compassion. This is the biggest crisis our country is facing.” MoreLife founder Professor Paul Gately claims state-funded places for ordinary kids have been wiped out altogether as the NHS battles a £960million black hole. Paul, who has run the camp since 1999, said: “We have had kids all over Britain funded by local authorities and Clinical Commissioning Groups in the past. But we have had no kids through our doors in the last year who have been approved for NHS funding.
“Around 80 a year once had their fees paid for, initially by NHS Primary Care Trusts and then, when they were scrapped, by CCGs and local authorities. But the money has run out.”
In 2014 Kyon went on an NHS ninemonth dietary programme at a London clinic called the Mary Sheridan Centre and his weight stabilised.
However four years later he was morbidly obese – 13st heavier than the average 10-year-old and too big for any school uniform.
His mum admitted she feels guilty for serving portions of his favourite dinners too large for his age.
She also conceded it is “really hard” to tell exactly how much food he consumes every day because he eats so much in secret.
She told how he locks himself in the bathroom of their South London home for secret half-hour binges, hiding empty crisp packets and choc wrappers behind the sink and in his bathrobe pockets.
Nadine, whose other son and daughter are normal weights, said: “When I first saw he had been stealing food, my heart broke. Now every time I hear the fridge door open I panic.
REFERRED
Surgery is like putting a band-aid over the biggest crisis our country is facing DR RANGAN CHATTERJEE STAR OF DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE
“I constantly ask him what he’s doing. But I have to put my hands up as mum.”
Last year Nadine visited a GP seeking help and was referred to the endocrinology clinic at King’s College Hospital for blood tests and scans. But