IM SICK OF BEING BIG by Michelle Tan

Summary:

Geogia Davis is only 15 years old and she weighs 462 pounds. She sawher life going no where. She was diagnosed with diabetes in 2007, and was named "Britain's fattest teen". Her mother decided to send her to Wellspring Academy , a weight-loss boarding school in Brevard, N.C. After being there for 7 weeks, she lost 62 pounds and no longer had diabetes. By December 2008, she had lost 100 lbs. She got to home for the holidays but worried she would gain her weight back by relapsing and eat what she use to eat. She used her will power that they bording school taught her and she lost 3 pounds while she was home. She now has more confidence in herself and likes to look in the mirror. The summer of 2009 , she lost 202 pounds and went from a 69 inches in waist to 38 inches. Her attitude towards life has totally changed her life. Her goal is to weigh 150 to 160 pounds. Georgia is not going to give up on her goal.

Relation to Class:

In Chapter 8, motivation and emotion we learn about obesity. Obesity is a condition in which a person's body-mass index, is greater than 30. Someone who is 5 ft 2 inches and weighs 164 pounds would be classified as obesity. About 32 percent of adults in the United States are obese and about 17 percent of children are over weight. Obesity is associated with health problems such as diabetes, high bloodpressure, an increased risk of heart attack, and possibly Alzbeimer's disease. Diabetes is what started on Georgia Davis since she gained so much weight and she could had the other problems if she would had denied going to the weight-loss school. People become obese because the body weight is determined by a combination of food intake and energy output. Obese people get more energy form food than their body metabolizes. Millions of people take anitobesity medication, but drug treatments alone are unlikely to solve the problem. The only solution are to advise people to make a huge lifestyle change in addition to drugs or surgery.