A few years ago, Stephen O'Rahilly, a professor of metabolic medicine at Cambridge and consultant of last resort for the dangerously overweight, had two cousins from the Punjab referred to him for treatment. One was an eight-year-old girl who weighed almost 190 pounds and was too heavy to walk. The other was a two-year-old boy. He tipped the scales at 65 pounds. The parents described the children's ravenous appetites, which no amount of food could sate, how they foraged in rubbish bins for discarded chips, and stole fish fingers from the freezer to chew without waiting for them to thaw. O'Rahilly's team saw for themselves how the youngsters gorged: the boy would put away 2500 calories at a single meal, and still be up for more.

LRB 7 August 2003 | PDF Download