Hector Garcia Jr. shared his story as a cautionary tale.
Severely obese, he did not want others to suffer the same pain and isolation he had experienced throughout his too-short life. He didn’t want others to be mocked, as he was as a kid when other children called him “fatso” and “hamburger” and picked fights with him. He didn’t want others to live in isolation, as he often did in his adult years, never really dating. Sometimes he was too big to leave a back bedroom of his childhood home, unable to walk a few feet or fit into a car.
Garcia didn’t want others to suffer the debilitating pain that came with carrying 500 or 600 pounds on his frame. Weight that destroyed his knees, making him bowlegged and forcing him to sleep with an airway pressure machine to avoid sleep apnea. He didn’t want others to suffer the depression that came with the weight and such a life of isolation.
“I overeat because food never rejects me,” Garcia once said to Express-News photographer Lisa Krantz, who followed him for four years to chronicle the toll of obesity.
[For more of this story go to http://www.mysanantonio.com/op...l-health-5990896.php]
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