His clothes are custom-made and sometimes he goes naked to avoid having to get dressed. But now his frame has shrunk so much he can get about on a special motorised chair.

Mr Mason admitted to eating 20,000 calories a day, eight times the amount needed by an average man.

Firefighters had to demolish the front wall of his former home so they could drive a fork lift truck inside to lift him out and put him into an ambulance when he needed a hernia operation in 2002.

‘I don’t want to go back to the old me. I’m determined to carry on losing weight until I’m a normal size. I’m much happier and healthier now.’

The former postman, who is is still believed to be the world’s heaviest man, had part of his stomach stapled off so that all the food he ate went into a small ‘pouch’, vastly restricting the amount he could eat. He was driven 143 miles in an ambulance with reinforced beds to have the operation at the specialist St Richard’s Hospital in Chichester. Doctors put him on a crash diet to bring his weight down to a safe level so the operation could go ahead.

His care bill costs taxpayers an estimated £100,000 a year and is believed to have topped £1million over the last 15 years.

World’s heaviest man Paul Mason has lost 20 stone after gastric bypass surgery | Mail Online

The Australian Medical Association is urging the government to use shock tactics in television commercials warning of the risks of eating fatty foods.

Doctors have proposed to the government of Victoria television and newspaper advertisements costing $25 million to graphically show the effects of fat on the body’s internal organs as part of a public health campaign about obesity, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported Sunday.

Dr. Gary Speck of the Australian Medical Association Victoria says the commercials would be modeled on U.S. ads that show people downing huge amounts of sugar and fat.

Doctors urge ‘shock tactics’ on obesity – UPI.com

According to a new study, children of alcoholics are more likely to face and suffer from obesity than kids who are not born into a family with a history of alcoholism.

Children Of Alcoholics Far More Likely To Be Obese | SmartAboutHealth.Net

A New Jersey woman who hopes to become the fattest woman in the world got 30,000 calories closer to her 1,000lb goal with a festive feast that could have fed dozens of revellers.

The single mother-of-two tucked into two 25lb turkeys, two maple-glazed hams, 15lbs of potatoes (10lbs roast, 5lbs mashed), five loaves of bread, five pounds of herb stuffing, four pints of gravy, four pints of cranberry dressing and an astonishing 20lbs of vegetables.

After polishing off her enormous main course, she still had room for dessert and ate a ‘salad’ made of marshmallow, cream cheese, whipped cream and cookies.

Donna Simpson’s feast: The 30,000-calorie Christmas feast eaten by the world’s fattest mum in ONE two-hour sitting | Mail Online

Obesity is not just a human epidemic.

In North America, obesity has swept through our pets, as more and more animals develop weight-related diseases that were almost unheard of 20 years ago. Diabetes, osteoarthritis, tears to the anterior cruciate ligaments, heart and respiratory disease, and pancreatitis are all increasing among our four-legged friends.

“Commercial food is one of the primary causes of obesity,” said Dr. Jody Kincaid, veterinarian at the Anthony Animal Clinic. ”

For most of Mufflers life, the 10-year-old miniature pinscher has been eating table food.

“He never liked dog food,” said Susan Valdez, Mufflers owner. “We would feed him whatever we would eat. If we would go to McDonalds, we would give him Chicken McNuggets. If we would go to a restaurant, we would bring the scraps to him. He was extremely spoiled.”

All that unhealthful eating caught up to Mufflers. Mufflers — whose breed should weigh from 11 to 15 pounds — ballooned to 26 pounds. And in June, he was diagnosed with diabetes, a disease that took his eyesight.

Ailments linked to pet weight keep increasing – USATODAY.com

Drivers who are involved in a vehicle crash are more likely to die if they are obese, says a new US study.

In a severe motor vehicle crash, a moderately obese driver faces a 21 per cent increased risk of death, while it is 56 per cent more risky for the morbidly obese.

Interestingly, underweight and normal weight drivers were found to be at higher risk of dying from a severe crash than slightly overweight drivers.

Obesity ups death risk in vehicle crashes – The Times of India

A new study published in the journal Obesity says that meal replacements might aid teens early to lose the extra pounds though they are unsuccessful in continuing to be more effective than the regular diets for long term weight regulation.

The study was headed by Dr. Robert L. Berkowitz of Philadelphia’s Children’s Hospital which discovered that the early stages of dieting, meal replacements prove effective for teenagers. But in the long run meal replacements are only as much effective as the standard diets that are kept for controlling weight.

Meal replacements may comprise of meal bars, shakes and other pre-prepared food rations which have in them the determined quantities of calories and nutrition.

New researches regarding obesity | TopNews United States

Fat was once the devil. Now more nutritionists are pointing accusingly at sugar and refined grains.

Most people can count calories. Many have a clue about where fat lurks in their diets. However, fewer give carbohydrates much thought, or know why they should.

But a growing number of top nutritional scientists blame excessive carbohydrates — not fat — for America’s ills. They say cutting carbohydrates is the key to reversing obesity, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and hypertension.

“Fat is not the problem,” says Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. “If Americans could eliminate sugary beverages, potatoes, white bread, pasta, white rice and sugary snacks, we would wipe out almost all the problems we have with weight and diabetes and other metabolic diseases.”

Scientists now saying carbs, not fat, are to blame for America’s ills – latimes.com

Researchers at Kobe University, Japan found that regular consumption of tea also suppressed damaging changes in the blood linked to fatty foods that can lead to type 2 diabetes, reports the Daily Mail.

In the study some mice were given a high fat diet and others a normal diet. Each of these two groups were then split into smaller groups and given water, black tea or green tea for 14 weeks.

Both types of tea suppressed body weight gain and the build-up of belly fat linked to a fatty diet.

But black tea, which is used in most ordinary cuppas, also counteracted the harmful effects on the blood normally associated with a high-fat diet.

Drinking tea curbs weight gain – The Times of India

McDonald’s advertised the chicken fajita as containing 2.5 grams of saturated fat but, on at least one occasion, the fast-chain chain served up the dish with 4.32 grams — about 75 per cent more than the amount of bad fat it claimed.

At one KFC location, the chicken strips packed in a total fat count of 19.37 grams, not 12 as stated by the company.

And Taco Bell’s fresco soft taco was supposed to contain 0.2 grams of trans fat — a fatty acid that consumers try to avoid because it raises the blood levels of the so-called “bad” cholesterol. But a test found the level to be 3.5 times greater at one outlet, where a taco weighed in with 0.7 grams of trans fat.

Some food chains fail to meet own fat limits