Fat girls and Feeders
31st March 2003 by Simon
I’ve just watched an extraordinary TV programme on UK Channel 4. “Fat girls and Feeders” was about super-sized girls and their fans known as Fat Admirers, or FAs. The main story was about Gina and her partner Mark who worked together to grow Gina to 60 stones, qualifying her as the heaviest ever woman model. During the process he started by taking Polaroid photo’s of her moving on to making videos which became best sellers in the sub-culture that is FA. The final video he made was to document the last time she was going to be able to walk, due to her enormous size. Given she nearly died, it’s pretty luckily that she made the decision to have surgery to start her reduction to her current 30 stones.
It also covered the darker/darkest side which are Feeders. These people provide food, whenever and whatever is required, but then pump it up with weight gain supplements and even go as extreme as pouring liquid fat down tubes down the feedees throats. Even in this world, these people are viewed as strange. I did a search for images and only came up with a few, but the most extreme.
I came away with the feeling that the super-sized girls were tremendously insecure and that when attention is lavished on them, possibly for the first time in their adult lives, they become pawns for the men that like control. This is most clear with the Feeders, who render the feedees immobile and totally dependant on them.
Sal had seen the show before and remarked on the similarity of the super-sized women and the Dali sketch, “Platja adormida” that we had see in a recent trip to Pubol in Spain. Wonder is Dali was a mild FA?
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(5 votes, average: 3.4 out of 5)
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It was bizarre, gross but totally compulsive viewing.
From now on, I’ll be wary of anyone offering to feed me in bed.
Hi Simon. I write you from Spain. I saw this program on spanish tv last month and i was in shock… I want to know more about the principal story of Mark and Gina. I would like to know if there is some web about them or one web designer about himself, mark.I?m very interesting in the video who he made… Please, if you can, write me.
I found this post, presumably made by Gina, the subject of this documentary, and thought it would be of interest.
From http://www.feeder.co.uk/fat_girls_and_feeders.html
Fat Girls and Feeders.. Gina Speaks
Posted By: Gina
Date: April 9 2003, 21:35
I know I said I would never post here again, and I have not. However, I believe it is very important that I say some things about this.
We were led to believe that this was going to be a positive documentary, showing that fat women and FA’s have a normal, loving relationship. They came and filmed us, for many days, and have hours and hours of video. The resulting documentary twists some truths and ignores others completely. It painted a totally false picture about who I am, who Teighlor is and mostly who Mark is. Like Teighlor has previously posted, we are totally devistated by this.
I will say this again. I have a medical condition called Lymphedema that causes my weight problem. I have neve made this a secret. My trip to the hospital for weight loss surgery in 1997 required a great deal of effort on my and Mark’s behalf. He supported it completely, and I could not have gone through it without him. He never left my side, for the 8 days I was in hospital. The idea that he is a sinister feeder is rediculous and totally fabricated by Optomen Productions and has no basis in fact. Even today he encourages me to walk, to take my meds, and be healthy. Yes, we have moved to a new house, but it was built for my comfort, to allow me some independance in self care, and the notion that he wants me as I was, is a blatant lie. This is just one of several untruths told in this fable of a documentary.
Our portrayal in this documentary is totally false. As we watched it we asked ourselves why? Why did they do this? and the only thing we could come up with is the same reason shows like Jerry Springer are still on. Because it sells. Not because they want to tell the truth.
We would love to sue, but that takes funds we really do not have. As a warning to all, if you are ever contacted by Optomen Television remember what they did to us, and just say no. It is apparent they deal in shock TV and will do anything, and say anything, just like the National Enquirer, under the guise of the BBC. They told us they were making a Fat Positive documentary for the BBC and throught carefully worded questions, led us to say exactly what was necessary to edit together one of the most fat negative stories ever told.
Alastair Cooke and Rob Davis of Optomen TV practice a form of psychological leading questioning designed to get the interviewee to say the words they need to edit the content for a complete opposite meaning. What they have done to us is libelous and slanderous.
People who copy and distribute this video to others are perpetuating these lies and we wish they would consider who they might be hurting.
I am well. My family is well. Thank you for not believing everything you see.
Gina
i am interested in learning more about this phenomenon. i live in the united states and am having difficulty locating this documentary. are you aware of any programs that have covered this story in the US? your help would be much appreciated!
Channel four allways does this. From what you say, they have twisted this into an unrecognisable state of twisted-ness. From what I understand of “feeders”, very few of them actually carry out their fantasies, and it is allways with someone who *wants* to gain, a “feedee”. these people, both feeders and feedees, get sexual pleasure from their partner gaining weight or gaining weight themselves, respectively. Some, though none as far as I’m aware, probably do take this to extreme lengths, the same sort of person who might commit rape, for instance. just because someone who experiences attraction to a “normal” person rapes her, can we blame everyone who expiriences attraction to “normal” women for this one man’s crime? can we blame all of austria for hitler? does the september the eleventh attacks make the muslim down the road any less of a good person? equally, how can we say that anyone who is aroused by the concept of a woman gaining weight sick, just because some of their number take it to extreme lengths? and any criticism anyone can make about fat admirers can be directed back at the vast majority, lusting over underweight catwalk models. This is not a criticism of anyone in particular, just channel four in general. I can forgive them though, because otherwise I would not get to see the simpsons.
i would just like to ask…..why? i mean these men “love” these women as they are so why super size them which will eventually result in their deaths?
People shouldn’t starve themselves to please others nor should they gorge themselves to please others.
What on earth would the diet and beauty industry do if people started to be happy with themselves the way they are? They’d panic!