Living Large in Fattest City: The 620-Pound Dilemma | Curious

[Music] houston texas is the fourth largest city in the union in the state where psy's most definitely matters texas is bigger than germany the uk ireland the netherlands and belgium put together everything's bigger in texas is the boast in these parts and for some that extends to their waistline too you know maybe they started out the everything's big in texas with the guys that's how i started it wasn't a big state it was big p [Music] and here in the lone star state big people have brought houston a dubious status it's america's fattest city obesity in texas has now been called public enemy number one by the medical profession if you could call being fat an epidemic it's an epidemic [Music] while a staggering two-thirds of texans are overweight and a third are obese many of them have no intention of slimming down i am not making any effort to lose weight just to lose weight so just how have these larger-than-life texans ended up being so big and what is it about texas that produces the fattest people in the fattest country in the world [Music] although obesity is raging throughout the entire united states it's the southern states like texas that tip the scales more than most [Music] in a nationwide study by a men's fitness magazine houston has been named and shamed as the fattest city for three years running ordinary houstonians reveal just what it is about the texan lifestyle and attitudes that's turned this place into a land of giants [Music] wide-eyed slack-jawed visitors to the state are often shocked by the sight of so much wobbling waddling weight but in texas fat is normal one of the reasons they are the fattest is they just don't care i've always been comfortable with my size i've been large all of my life but i came from a family of large people and that was normal so i never had a problem with my size or or self-esteem linda is just five foot four but weighs pounds she's making a life-sized wire frame model of herself and was shocked to realize just how big she'd become i thought oh my goodness look at the size of her and i asked my husband does that really look like me and he said you're right on target it's just right there i don't comprehend size in my mind i think you know i read about people who are anorexic who look in the mirror and see a fat person well i maybe i have the the opposite you know i don't see this i don't see this size person when i look in the mirror by any means so i so when i saw her in 3d it was just like wow now that's a fat person [Music] diane weighs in at 625 pounds she too makes no apologies for her size when i look back on both sides of the family there is a lot of obesity granted i'm the largest of everybody but at the same time you ask me i'm the prettiest the standard measurement used for obesity is the body mass index or bmi a calculation of a person's weight in kilograms divided by the square of their height in meters a healthy bmi should be between 19 and 24. diane's is over a hundred [Music] that puts her in this super super morbidly obese class she can no longer walk and needs constant attention from her home help lee i don't really look at her size you know i i look with the person as herself what i would never do would tell her or ask her you know diane would you ever think about losing weight i would never do that because as i say she's a beautiful person just like she is just because you're fat doesn't mean that you're not attractive in this shot i was wearing a one-piece cat suit which is stretch lace from shoulder down to ankle nothing underneath it i see myself in this as someone who is very comfortable in her own skin someone who accepts herself and makes no apologies to anybody and also accepts the fact that yes she can be sensual [Music] many texans take a pride in their super size they are famously competitive and if they can't be the biggest they want to be the best even in the area of want and gluttony [Music] i've done a lot of things in my life where i've raced cars and i've raced motorcycles and boats and i could never win at anything you know so i figured one thing i do know i can do is eat so i eat and this is my accomplishments i have no trophies here for boat racing none for car racing but i do get them for eating i am an eating machine bud's prodigious appetite as a competitive eater may be extraordinary but carrying a hundred pounds of excess weight like he does is absolutely nothing out of the ordinary in houston if you look at my size you'll see probably i'd say a good 30 percent of the men in houston or in texas not just houston are about my size i mean i'm i'm kind of big but you know i still get up go to work and i can't enjoy myself you know there's nothing i have limitations on doing being as big as i am but diane sees one rule for big men and another for big women in texas it seems that men of size it's hunky-dory it's okay you know they're chunky they're muscular i mean how many fat men do you see with rolls of fat in their muscles their beer bellies hanging over their pants because they can't pull their pants up for men it's acceptable to be fat women it's not [Music] diane is meeting her friend kathy it's an opportunity to bemoan the unfair judgment she gets hey how you ladies doing today it's fine good i got some chips and salsa here for you i look in the mirror and there's nothing wrong with who i am or what i look like if you open your mind it's the tunnel vision-minded person who can't accept me because i know that i dress well for what i for what's available in my size i feel like i look good and if i feel good in what i'm wearing i know i'm presenting myself well part of it also goes back to if you feel good you're going to look good and if you're smiling with a happy face you don't look your age but if you're real sad about the molly grubs you age yourself so many of the gentlemen i've met through the personals in that sincerely seem to think i should be just grateful to go out on a date they seem to think that because of my size i'm willing to be treated any which way or willing to do anything i mean just because i'm large doesn't mean i don't have morals i don't have feelings and i wish you know that they would take that into consideration we're human too that's true there are a lot of men that just are predators yes many are in denial about their weight problem perhaps because the reasons for it will challenge almost everything about the comfortable lifestyle they've created does the texan way of life come with too high a price to pay the epidemic of obesity coming up food glorious food as bud makes short work of some monster meals it's unbelievable [Music] the prime suspect in the texan lifestyle that causes so much obesity in houston is food enormous amounts of food champion eater bud starts his day with a few appetizers thank you yeah we start the day usually with three donuts and then about 10 o'clock we'll stop what a burger and have a whataburger and after that we'll have lunch about one o'clock [Music] but it's not all fast food in america's fattest city the temptations to eat in houston are vast and varied it's one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the states with a wealth of international cuisines competing for texans food dollars we'll cook it for another 30 minutes let the cheese melt on it in texas everything revolves around eating you are not a texan unless you love barbecue you must be a beefeater you have to love food period be it italian chinese mexican everything revolves around eating and texans have a keen eye for a bargain when it comes to food but especially will rise to a challenge if he can score a free meal today they got the free uh 32 ounce steak if you can eat it what it is a chicken fried steak breaded mashed or potatoes salad if you can do it it's free this is 32 ounces plus breading so we're gonna give it a try today and see what happens [Music] come on [Music] the big problem with food in houston is not that it's bad it's just there's so much of it linda and her husband are meeting friends at a restaurant that like most in this city serves humongous portions while this is seen as great value for money linda admits she doesn't know when she's eaten enough i don't understand that satisfied feeling i don't i can't grasp that concept yet i don't know full i don't i don't know how to do that siblings big people all they're we're all the same we're all big heavy people oh my goodness look how big that is i know [Music] because of super sizing a portion of french fries has gone from 200 calories in the 60s to more than 600 calories today it seems price and value matter more than taste and presentation when we moved to texas in 1973 if you went in to get a big that would be a big meal that would be a really big meal somewhere in the 80s some marketing scheme said let's raise the price of the meal but let's give them more food don't give them expensive food give them cheap stuff beans and rice and whatever but oh and lots of bread and i don't remember that until maybe the 80s but i don't know when platters got so big because i'm i'm tall i've been taught to eat as much as is on that plate everything on that plate has to go [Music] regardless of how hungry someone is it's been shown that super sizing portions makes people eat more not that bud needs much encouragement as he finishes his 32-ounce steaks do you want a dessert brownie your pecan pie nope okay thank you you did awesome would that be frito i would hope that well it didn't go too bad you know 24 minutes not as good as i expected but it was a free dinner [Music] um [Music] not everyone is complacent about obesity someone who has had enough of being fat is 34 year old tiffany she remarried in 2002 and has since taken stock of how she wants to look looking good and feeling good is very important to me because i mean it tells a lot about you i don't want to go through life being uncomfortable and miserable i'm just tired i'm just i really just want to enjoy the rest of my life like in a way i kind of feel like not that i missed out on all my 20s but i could have maybe been so much more done so much more if i didn't have the weight kind of holding me back this is just a dress that i got for christmas maybe two christmases ago for my mom and i never could fit it and i just want to know and know what it feels like to be able to put it on i have a lot of clothes in my closet like that [Music] obesity is far from being merely a cosmetic issue it's directly responsible for a long list of today's most common and costly medical problems from diabetes to heart disease and it's getting worse with obesity figures going up by one percent every year [Music] unable to stick to a diet tiffany has decided to take a drastic high-tech high-risk route to stop gaining weight she's going to have her stomach stapled in an operation that could kill her i would say the main reason for me wanting the surgery i mean to look good of course but to mainly to be healthier so i can have many more days here on earth with my son and then it can give me the energy that i need for him to work with him to get the weight off of him also tiffany's son jordan has a fat problem too he's already 168 pounds with a bmi of 32 that makes him obese and he's not alone 35 percent of texan school children are overweight i'm 11 years old and i weigh around 167 to 169 and i should weigh 95 to 100. at some points i really do wish i was skinnier they sometimes pick on me about it and i really hate it and that's why i'm trying to lose weight if i grow up to be big i probably really don't want to and if i grow up to be skinny i'll be happier jordan's best friend is johnny who accepts him just the way he is he's big but like my mom says he dresses nice and that's what makes him look better than most big people and i say if you dress nice then that's just like saying that hey you're not that fat since his metabolism is faster then he can eat more than me without gaining more than five pounds he's my best friend i don't care if he eat all my food my mom likes that he eats but i don't really eat so i just give him all my extras or give him my food it's lunch time for jordan unhealthy meals served up in texas schools have finally been recognized as contributing to juvenile obesity jordan's school now makes healthier low-fat versions of kids fast food favorites without them realizing the difference there's four different lines and i usually go to those three lines those three lines right there and then that's what i usually get with pizza chicken nuggets stuff like that for years schools have boosted their incomes in partnerships with the fast food giants in houston it's estimated that schools get two million dollars a year from vending machine sales alone jordan school has recently insisted on having only low sugar drinks many don't the rise of obesity among texan school children is alarming severe obesity related diseases are being found in children younger than ever before there's now a growing fear that this is the first generation which may have shorter life spans than its parents [Music] the average houstonian eats 3 800 calories a day the problem is they need less than 2 000 calories for the amount of activity they do you do the math [Music] food junkie bud has moved on to one of houston's many all-you-can-eat restaurants for his evening fix of food what we have here is we have diablo fajitas which is uh beef skirt onions green peppers cheese and as you see them we put the beans and the rice see how it tastes good houstonians eat out more than people in any other city and with the average cost of a meal being under 18 dollars it's much cheaper than anywhere else i eat out seven nights a week because it is cheaper for me to eat out this meal right here is eleven dollars and i can eat all i want if i was to make this meal at home this meal would cost me anywhere from 25 to 40 dollars such cheap meals just encourage overeating as people scoff more to feel they're getting their money's worth i come in here on super bowl sunday at one o'clock i don't leave here until seven o'clock i eat from the time i get here till the time i get back you know just it's unbelievable but all you can eat one price restaurants weren't designed for the likes of bud's appetite i have been been banned from two restaurants because that were all you can eat because like i say they make their money on the people that can eat i went through two complete prime ribs in four hours they asked me if i would not come back again you know so i just don't understand it don't make sense you know it's all you can eat [Music] coming up why the comfort and convenience of living in texas is adding to the weight problem i am probably one of the laziest men you'll ever find texans are fiercely proud of their state's history for many a connection with cowboys and a life outdoors is nostalgically kept alive in this era of air-conditioned comfort [Music] living in the rural outskirts of houston richard enjoys the best of all worlds i think i probably fit pretty close to the image of a texan i think texans are just uh good old boys [Music] i enjoy the city and the nice restaurants and all that but i prefer to come out here and sit around the fire and have a cold beer and eat a steak my body image is old and fat old and chunky i'm comfortable with it i mean i i can still do things and and i'm still pretty limber for a fat boy the cult of bigness doesn't stop at super-sized meals in texas big is beautiful bigger is better i guess and maybe that might be a little texas phrase there but bigger is definitely better oklahoma richards invited some friends over to his house for a barbecue big pickup trucks and beer bellies are very much the order of the day while his friends chill in his backyard richard's hard at work in the kitchen like many ordinary texans he is a connoisseur of food and an enthusiastic amateur cook i'm a regular guy to a point but i just enjoyed cooking very much very much you know fast food i think is overrated and i like the more exotic foods i guess you could call it and i think it's much better to eat a meal like i'm preparing right now than than fast food any day and it just doesn't take that long to do it never trust a skinny barbecue cook [Music] do [Music] mom i'm talking i'm listening and then a nintendo 64 nintendo 64 games and then an xbox game and an xbox okay i love you like many busy houstonians tiffany often takes the easy fast food option at the end of the day and orders a carry-out for herself and jordan she's easily seduced into ordering more than she a meat needs can i have a large meat lover's pizza which one is the thick one i want the thick one okay that's what i want pan pan pizza okay okay so if i get one large meat lovers pizza i can get a medium for 1.

99 okay and a two liter drink what kind of drink you have richard and his friends form the chilean and grillin competitive cooking team in two days time they are going to take part in a big annual barbecue cook-off competition they usually win it and have serious hopes for this year do you all think we can do it again do what in in in in in 94 until now i don't think we haven't done it you all think we can do it again our point is we want to win oh that's all we want to win we have honoring state major tiffany and jordan are making quick work of their super-sized tv dinner studies show that the greater the time spent watching tv the fatter the kid four hours a day is not uncommon and if there's one thing houstonians do exceedingly well it's sitting and therein lies a problem [Music] houston is a city built in homage to the automobile [Music] the texan oil boom encouraged an enormous web of freeways across the city [Music] new evidence shows that the greater the urban sprawl the more people have to drive the less they walk and the heavier they become it's as if the city itself should come with a health warning [Music] it's so sprawled out over so big of a of an area i i just don't think i don't see how everybody could walk or even the majority could walk in in a in a in a way that would function in houston texas in europe people make a third of their trips on foot or by bicycle in the u. s it's less than a tenth and in houston no one walks anywhere if they can help there's a ladies dress store and they always are in a strip center a strip of store fronts like like you know what we're passing here that way large-sized ladies can drive up to their door get out and walk 10 feet and if everything was like that oh what a wonderful world it would be for all of us who don't want to get out there and just walk and walk and walk a generation ago 70 percent of children walked or cycled to school these days it's less than 20 percent jordan couldn't walk to his school safely even if he wanted to the surrounding suburbs have no sidewalks linda doesn't even let her son walk to the bus stop we're sitting here we're not far from the school bus not the school bus but the stop sign that's where the school bus picks the children up for school in the morning and drops them in the afternoon and in the morning we drive them to the bus stop and it is what's a good what 50 feet down there we can find many ways to justify driving to the corner but it's it's what we do i am probably one of the laziest men you'll ever find i will not walk to the mailbox unless i have to if i want to go get the mail i'll wait till i have to go somewhere in the car and then i'll stop by the mailbox and pick up the mail and the mailbox is about 20 feet from the house and that it is pretty sad that i don't walk that far part of the reason why they don't want to leave the comfort of their air-conditioned cars is the weather for much of the year houston is unbearably hot and humid but when it rains it pours and then floods [Music] live from kprc channel 2 where local news comes first the rain doesn't dampen spirits as richard and his teammates appear on local tv as star cooks if it rains at the cook-off tomorrow richard won't be deterred either i like the harsh weather we cooking snow ice it doesn't matter we just keep on doing our job and fill ourselves up with whiskey for antifreeze and we're in we're in the house we'll do great [Music] coming up the day of tiffany's operation arrives i just thought wow this is where they're gonna do it and it's the moment of truth for richard these are right on that's about as good as you're gonna ever see you're going to get sick if you drink too much with tiffany's operation tomorrow she's having a final checkup with her surgeon eric wilson basically what we're going to do is we're going to take your stomach we're going to divide it into two pieces the upper piece is going to be a very small piece about 20 cc's or 20 cubic centimeters i'm a little bit less than an ounce yeah about the size of a racquetball or less we're going to completely divide the stomach into and then we're going to cut the intestine down below and and bring up a limb of intestine to that pouch so when you eat the food [Music] goes through the small pouch and into the intestine and down into the rest of your intestine to help digest the food it's point five to one percent chance of dying from the operation and we don't consider that a small number that's actually a pretty high number to us but there's no getting away from the fact that due to these problems you could die from the operation i guess i'm a little nervous but i'm more anxious and excited than i just am i just you know i have i have faith in you all and i have faith period and i just feel like everything's going to go fine food tiffany's surgery is a major operation and the high risks can't be overlooked diane had it and had to have it reversed i had the surgery i weighed 404 pounds i lost 150 in 10 months i no longer could swallow and that's when we found out the surgery was very drastically wrong i had to have five corrective surgeries i now have lifetime complications which there are no answers for and now here i am 15 years later 240 pounds more than i had been i've been there i've done that and i burned the t-shirt i don't want to go there again i will not go there again diane gets upset when people make suggestions about her losing weight pressure to me is like on my birthday when my family handed me a cut out from the newspaper an ad to have weight loss surgery and tell me that was my gift i can't take it anymore i've already tried to change my life to suit y'all i'm happy with who i am y'all are not maybe you need the attitude adjustment [Music] surgery is the last ditch option open to just the morbidly obese for everyone else the answer lies in exercise and diet control jordan's had a football game with his grandma he sprained his wrist but that's not the only reason he's not able to burn off some calories in the team today [Music] there's a certain weight limit for some reason and it's 155 but see i'm over that because i weigh 167 so i'm not able to play you better go in there and handle some business you understand if you have boys that are out there you know you you have 10 11 year old boys and sometimes 12 year old boys that weigh 170 180 they're going to hurt somebody all right handle it [Music] means already the weight of a grown man he's been at practice and he's been working at practice he's had no choice but to work at practice and he's done a good job at practice during the training i lost 10 pounds [Music] jordan's grandma is keen he doesn't end up fat like his mother but i kind of pushed the football issue with my daughter because i wanted jordan had to get active you know i don't want him to grow up to be a fat kid i'mma come back we're gonna we're starting weight watchers monday him and i together she's starting with watching and he's coming with me the diet industry in the u.