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Tipping the scales at over
3st 8-month-old Santiago Mendoza weighs the same as an average six-year-old
child, and is over three times heavier than he should be, doctors have said.
Now Santiago, who doctors
describe as a ‘compulsive eater’, has been rescued by a charity so he can
undergo life-saving treatment.
The boy, whose family is
from the Colombian city of Valledupar in the northeast of the country, will now
be put on a strict diet and encouraged to undertake physical activity.
The Chubby Hearts foundation
charity (Gorditos de Corazon) stepped in after being asked for help by Eunice
Fandiño, the mother of the child. She told the charity that the boy’s weight
gain was because every time he cried, she gave him milk or other food to settle
him.
“I am worried because first
of all it is difficult to carry him around,” she said. “He looks very cute like
this but his health is not good and so I think he should receive help so he is
able to get back to his normal weight.”
Chubby Hearts director
Salvador Palacio González said the child had been repeatedly given too much
food and constant milk bottles: “He has a metabolic syndrome, in other words
progressive weight gain, and he is also suffering from lung problems and
anxiety, he is a compulsive eater.”
The folds of fat on the
child have been hindering his development, preventing him from learning the
ability to roll over or crawl.
Doctors have now put
Santiago on a strict vegetable and fruit juice diet: “We obviously depend on
the mother’s care, we have all the specialists and our commitment is complete,”
said Salvador Palacio González.
“We have to subject him to
some physical activity therapy programmes, we logically also have to place him
on a diet. The most important thing is to improve his social surroundings
because we’re talking about a low-income family,” he added.
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