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China's fattest person goes in for weight-loss surgery

By Wang Zhen
2015-11-12

A girl who was called China’s fattest person has undergone what is expected to be a life-changing surgery at a Sino-Japanese Friendship Hospital affiliated with Jilin University, in the city of Changchun, Jilin province where she had gastric bypass surgery to reduce the size of her stomach, on Nov 4.

Xiao Wei, not her real name, 25, weighed 95 kilograms when she was in high school and by the time she graduated from college had gained another 50 kg. Before surgery, weighed 244 kg, but now is expected to lose 2 kg weekly, and roughly 82 kg in two years.
 
In looking back at her weight problem, Xiao explains that she used to eat a lot, "two or three times more than for other children", and gradually developed an insatiable appetite, for example, "I like barbecue and beer, and I could eat 100 skewers and then two boxes of beers at one time."

China's fattest person goes in for weight-loss surgery

Xiaowei getting a physical before the surgery. [Photo/chinajilin.com.cn]

And her situation kept getting worse as her body ballooned, affecting her mobility, breathing, and normal life, until last year when she couldn't even sleep on a bed and could only sit down to sleep, otherwise her heart felt bad.

The head of the weight-loss department in the hospital, Jiang Tao, explained the difficulty by saying, "The amount of anesthesia we had to use for her is five times the amount for normal people and her stomach is surrounded by fat, that’s the difficult part of the surgery."

But, now, Xiao has had a successful operation and will have to remain in the hospital for a couple of days, but, in view of the fact that she was stuck in her home for several years because of her size, she’s happy about the results.

In her words, "I already feel more energetic after the surgery and I'm more confident than I used to be. Now, I’ve only had several spoonfuls of porridge and had no meat at all. And I was such a meat lover."

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