Almost one year ago, she was dubbed by the British media the fattest teen in the country, a title that was as humiliating as it was painfully true. Today, 16-year-old Georgia Davis is ready to return home to the UK after spending time at a US fat camp where she lost almost half her body weight under professional supervision and guidance, ABC News informs.

When her name first made international headlines, Georgia tipped the scales at over 200kg and doctors had already warned her that she must either lose some weight or accept that she was about to die. Her friends, family and especially her ill mother have also contributed to her making the decision to head straight to fat boot camp all across the pond to the Wellspring Academy of the Carolinas in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains.

In just nine months, Georgia has shed approximately 90kg, but that is just the beginning of the road for her, she says. She has now learned at fat camp that health is all that must matter for her, therefore she will not make the same mistake of slipping back into her old eating habits. “I was unhappy, I was eating the wrong stuff, I was doing the wrong things and now it’s like the complete opposite. What motivated me was my friends and my family, and me thinking that if I keep going the way that I am I am going to die soon.” Davis tells Good Morning America, as cited by ABC News.

Now that she has learned that she can take matters into her own hands and deal with her weight problem as an adult, Georgia says she plans to stick to everything she has learned during her eight-month stay in the US. For one, she knows better than to seek consolation in food, having learned to eat healthy and stay off the fatty foods and other types of consolation food she once indulged heavily in. Having her goals better defined – she wants to shed 25kg or so more – also helps her a lot, Georgia says.

However, what Britain’s former fattest teen appreciates the most with the experience is the fact that she learned how to be happy again. As a matter of fact, she can now honestly call herself “Britain’s happiest teen,” because she is certain she will be able to care for her sick mother (her father died when she was just 5) for longer.

“I can’t wait to go home and look after my mum. I have so much more energy in me than I had... before coming here. At home I did not have an eating plan, eating very high fat foods. When I go home now I’m still going to look after my mum, but I know how to look after her without destroying myself.” Georgia tells GMA.