14 DAY TRIAL // In February this year, the team on The Doctors on CBS, staged an intervention for 9-year-old reality star Honey Boo Boo (real name Alana Thompson) to help her lose weight. She is obese, as you must know if you’ve seen her TLC show or read about her in the press, weighing in at about 125 pounds (56.7 kg).
Her mother, Mama June (June Thompson) also has a serious weight problem, but because Alana is so young, she had to get on board with the diet first and foremost to maximize the child’s odds of success. Not only did Mama June not follow through with her promises, but she might have sabotaged her daughter’s chances for a healthier life.
Episode airs, proves weight loss efforts are a failure
After the appearance on the show, when Mama June and Honey Boo Boo were introduced to healthier variants of their favorite, calorie-laden foods, CBS caught up with them in April, for a progress check. It was anything but encouraging.
The nutritionist found that Mama June wasn’t really keeping tabs on Alana’s meals, which meant that she was still sneaking in over-processed, sugary treats. She was probably preparing or buying some of those treats herself, which was even worse.
Last night, Mama June and Honey Boo Boo were reunited with Dr. Jennifer Ashton and Dr. Travis Stork, to talk about their progress and whether they were experiencing the benefits of this new, healthier lifestyle.
To their surprise (and the audience’s), neither reality star managed to lose weight, despite claiming to sticking to the meal plan and working out at least half an hour a day.
More frustrating was the fact that Mama June appeared insensitive to the risks she was exposing her daughter, insisting that she didn’t lie about supporting her in her weight loss attempts.
You can see a large chunk of the episode in the videos below. Reports online say that Dr. Stork continued to grill her and that audience members booed Mama June when it became clear to them that she was lying.
Mama June is publicly shamed once more
This isn’t the first time that Mama June agrees to do a TV appearance only to have it blow up in her face: think of her Dr. Phil interview in the aftermath of the pedophile scandal, when she tried and failed to deny reports that she had reconnected with a convicted pedophile and was in a relationship with him.
This appearance on The Doctors is another blow to her already very damaged public image: after all, here she is, a mother of 4 girls, with the youngest being medically obese, refusing the kind of help others could only dream of getting in their struggle with the extra weight.
Not only that, but she is defiant in her lying ways, and quite ridiculous in trying to fool two seasoned professionals. As Dr. Stork says to her at one point, there is a clear disconnect between the things she says and what she ends up doing in real life: it’s almost as if she’s grown accustomed to playing it up for the cameras and is doing so even when her daughter’s life is at risk.