Anna Furniss buying her daughter a gastrib band

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‘I’m buying my teen a gastric op!'

Tuesday 15 May 2012

When anna Furniss looks at her daughter, she panics that she’ll have years of misery ahead. That’s because 5ft 1 Emily, 16, is already morbidly obese – just like Anna was as a teenager.

Anna, who’s 5ft 1 and weighed 31st at her heaviest, swears that diets didn’t work for her, so, incredibly, she’s saving up for 16st Emily to have the same gastric operation as she did – rather than encouraging her daughter to diet and exercise to lose weight.

Anna now weighs 12st after losing 19st following an extreme gastric op, which cut away three quarters of her stomach, leaving her unable to eat more than a few mouthfuls of food a day.

“I know people might think it’s irresponsible, but I know from my own experience that diets never work,” she says.

“Emily can’t stick to them and she hates exercise – she likes to relax after school with her Xbox. Obesity runs in the family.

I needed an operation to cure me and she needs the same.”

“I’m so envious of mum’s figure,” adds Emily. “She’s already planned for me to have the operation during a gap year when I’m 18. Then I can be slim when I start university. I can’t wait. I have tried to diet, but it never works and it’s hard to exercise when you’re this big.”

Bank worker Anna, from Chingford, Essex, weighed 9st and wore size 16 clothes when she was just nine years old.

“My parents are Italian,” she says. “We ate huge plates of pasta covered in creamy cheese sauces. At school people excluded me because of my weight. I turned into a recluse and comfort ate.”

By the time she reached 17, Anna weighed 17st.

“I tried WeightWatchers and Slimming World, but nothing worked,” she says. “I swam on and off too, but that made no difference, either.”

When Anna met her husband, factory worker Paul, she stopped dieting altogether. By this time Anna was 24 and 23st.

“Paul was happy with me the way I was,” she says. “But I couldn’t have full-length mirrors in the house and I couldn’t find any clothes to fit me.”

When she fell pregnant with Emily at 25 and second daughter Olivia two years later, the weight piled on. By age 30, Anna was 31st and a size 36.

“I was a busy working mum and relied on quick foods like pasta and I ate lots of bread and biscuits, too,” she says.

“I couldn’t take the kids on holiday abroad because I couldn’t fit in a plane seat.

Gastric Band mum

I felt so guilty. I stopped taking them to school because I was embarrassed – my sister did it. The saddest thing was when other kids asked my daughters if my sister was their mum, they said yes – they didn’t want friends to see they had a fat mum.”

Anna’s health began to deteriorate and she suffered from hernias and asthma because of her weight.
“I was scared I wouldn’t live to see my kids grow up,” she recalls.

In desperation, Anna began researching gastric operations online and discovered a type of extreme surgery called a “duodenal switch,” which involves removing three quarters of the stomach, so patients can only eat small quantities for life. The procedure is so extreme, it needs to be done in two stages.

In September 2006, Anna went to see her GP, who referred her for the operation.

“I knew there was a chance I could die on the operating table because I was so big, but I was so desperate, I didn’t care,” she says.

But with a staggering BMI of 73 (the healthy range is 18.5 to 25), Anna was too heavy to have an anaesthetic safely so she needed to lose 3st before she could have the operation.

She went on a liquid diet of shakes and soups, and lost 4st in six weeks. Two weeks later, she underwent the six-hour, £10,000 operation on the NHS.

“After the operation, I could only manage two gulps of soup and I’d be full,” she says. “I had to eat slowly and it felt painful. But the weight fell off and I began to feel happier.”

By April 2009, Anna had lost 10st and was a size 20.

In February 2009, she had the second part of the operation to remove the part of her intestine that absorbs fat – enabling her to lose a further 9st in 12 months. Even now, Anna can only eat little pieces of meat and a few vegetables per meal.

“I felt amazing,” she says.

“My husband said it was like having a new wife.”

Anna was even able to take her kids on days out for the first time.

“She never took us out before because she was embarrassed,” says Emily. “But when she lost the weight, she took us to a theme park for the first time.”

But Emily’s own weight went up as her mother’s decreased.

Emily, who claims she has inherited her mum’s weight problem, says: “I was bullied at school from the age of five. People called me ‘fat girl’ and ‘chunky.’

I used to come home in tears.

“I ate fairly healthily, but my portion sizes were big. I think it’s genetic. At nine, I was 9st.”

Anna partly blames herself for Emily’s weight problem.

“I passed on my bad habits,” she admits. “Our meals were healthy, but she has a huge appetite. We went to WeightWatchers when Emily was 12. She started well, then petered out. We were doing the right things, but it’s genetic.”

Now Emily is 16st and a size 22 – the same as her mum was at that age. Astonishingly, rather than encourage her daughter to diet, Anna feels the only answer is for Emily to have the same operation she did, despite it carrying the risk of Emily developing internal bleeding or deep vein thrombosis.

She says: “Emily has inherited my genes and puts on weight easily. I want her to have surgery now, so she can have a life.”

Anna is now saving for Emily’s operation, as Emily isn’t big enough to have it on the NHS,
so she will have to go private.

“I’ve saved £4k already, but I’ll remortgage the house if I have to,” says Anna. “Her dad is very supportive. Only my mum thinks we should keep dieting.

“Being slim changed my life. I want Emily to feel the same.”

Emily adds: “I’m not worried about the risks because I’ll get through it like Mum did. I want to be a size 12 like her.”

By Jon Smith-Squire