An eight-year-old girl in Shivpuri district of Madhya Pradesh has tipped the scales at more than 60 kgs due to her constant cravings for food. Jafiya Rashid stands 129 cm tall but weighs three times more than children her age. She suffers from constant bouts of hunger and chomps down five to six rotis and three plates of rice at one go.
Hungry All The Time
Even though she takes heavy dinner every night, Jafiya is never satiated and wakes her mother up, demanding more food.
She has a massive appetite and eats more than us. She can easily eat three plates of rice and 12 to 15 chapatis in a day. She never says no to food and feels hungry at odd hours. She would wake up crying every night for food even though she takes heavy dinner. She eats like a 25 year old adult.Afroza Rashid, Jafiya’s mother
Born to the now 38-year-old Rashid Khan and 35-year-old Afroza, Jafiya was not always an obese child. Rashid says Jafiya's weight at the time of birth was only 4.8 lbs. She weighed normal but her four months after her birth, her weight started to shoot up.
The family initially saw her weight as a mark of being healthy. But then she started swelling at an abnormal rate.
We ignored her abnormal weight gain until she turned five and weighed a staggering 33 kgs. By the time Jafiya turned five, she ballooned to 45 kgs. We took her to several doctors in Madhya Pradesh but surprisingly doctors did not find anything abnormal about her alarming weight and her appetite. They classified her as being morbidly obese and told us that her cholesterol level is high.Afroza Rashid, Jafiya’s mother
Afroza says that due to her weight, Jafiya at times struggles to breathe. She can't sleep well. The black mark on her forehead is because she sleeps in an unusual way by keeping her forehead against the wall.
Fat-Shamed & Humiliated
The parents say their first child is a bright student but her school life has been plagued by name calling from peers because of her massive frame. "She cries every morning while going to school because other students tease her and call her fat. She does not even go to play with other kids. If we go to the market, people stop doing everything and start laughing at her. It hurts when people call her fat and laugh at our daughter," lamented Afroza.
The Monetary Constraints
Her distressed parents are now confused, unable to figure out what is causing her insatiable appetite. They say they have been consulting specialists in advanced hospitals for medical help but to no avail.
For Rashid Khan, who works as a contractual labourer in the Department of Archaeology, supporting the expensive treatment is very difficult.
He says: "No one in our family is obese. God knows why our daughter is fat or hungry all the time. We are trying our best to give her treatment but doctors in our city have said the treatment is only possible in big cities like Delhi. But it would be very expensive. I can't afford it here because I have to either stay in a hotel or in a rented apartment, which will be out of my budget. Also the tests are expensive."
The father is now hoping for government to listen to Jafiya's ordeal and come forward to help.
Video Editor: Vivek Gupta
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)