14 DAY TRIAL // A British woman with serious fertility issues, Melanie King, was told she was too fat to adopt when she and her husband, Jason, wanted to initiate the procedures to have a baby. Morbidly obese because of several health complications, King decided to lose all the extra weight with the all-liquid, severe Cambridge diet and, now, months and 50 kg later, she is a happy mother to a little boy, the British the Daily Mail informs.
King admits she was morbidly obese, but insists it was not entirely her fault. In her early 20s, she took steroids to treat asthma and then, later on, she suffered a severe back injury that had her, again, on steroids. Afterwards, no matter what she did, she continued to gain weight, to the point where she was even denied the right to adopt on health concerns. So, she started the Cambridge diet to get back in shape – and that she did, the Mail says.
“I was devastated. I did everything to try and get the weight back off, I ate less, I tried the latest diets but it just wouldn’t shift. It was a dark time. I thought that if I made myself sick every time I ate I wouldn’t take so much in. I did this for about two weeks until I realized what I was doing and shocked myself out of it. If I’d carried on I’m sure I would have become ill. I was depressed and I hated myself, on the rare occasions I did go out I had to find a chair I thought I wouldn’t get stuck in. It was awful.” King recalls of the days when she was still struggling to drop all that weight.
Then, she found the Cambridge diet, which is based on specially made shakes – three a day, for more clarity –, excluding solid food altogether. “Two months after starting the plan on November 2007 she had lost two stone. In April 2008, the couple went up before an adoption panel, and with Melanie now at a trim size 12 the Kings were overjoyed to hear they had been successful. And once she clapped eyes on her four-year-old son in August, she realized her battle had been finally won.” the British publication writes of King’s inspiring story.
According to a spokesperson for the Hartlepool Borough Council, applicants for adoption must fulfill several health requirements as well. If a panel rules that the potential adopter might be at some sort of health risk (like those implied by being morbidly overweight, such as was the case of King), then the petition is denied until the situation is remedied. Of course, this is all but justified by that the child’s best interests are those that have predominance, as Melanie King has also come to understand now.
For Melanie King’s full story, please see here.