Young Iraq’s mental and physical health have been ruined by his weight

At 24 years old and weighing 180 kilogrammes, Iraqi LA urgently needs gastric sleeve surgery to get down to a healthy weight.

Iraqi L A at his home in Fujairah. Overweight and increasingly isolated from his friends and family, he has become depressed and is in urgent need of gastric sleeve surgery. Satish Kumar / The NationalShow less

ABU DHABI// The family of an obese man who desperately needs surgery to help him lose weight have spoken about their fears for his future and his health.

At 24 years old and weighing 180 kilograms, Iraqi L A urgently needs gastric sleeve surgery to get down to a healthy weight. However the procedure, which involves drastically reducing the size of the stomach, costs as much as Dh25,000, which his family cannot afford.

“He is my only son and my only support,” said L A’s father. “I’m worried that I’ll lose my only son. Right now he is all we think about.”

The 61-year-old has worked for a transportation company in Fujairah for the past 20 years and earns Dh3,300 per month.

“God only knows how I manage and get by every month. I have to pay rent, school fees, utilities, food,” said the father of five, four daughters and one son.

Adding to the worry, the father has not been able to pay the rent for his two bedroom apartment for the past three months.

As well as damaging his health, L A’s weight has also affected his education. In 2012 he was forced to drop out of his communication studies at a government university in the third year because his knees could no longer support his body and he was in constant pain. He also developed asthma because of his obesity.

Doctors prescribed steroids, but the drugs only exacerbated his weight gain.

“I wanted to get a job to pay off my university fees, but I can’t walk two steps without feeling that my legs are on fire and I am panting heavily,” said L A, who has tried various diets and exercise regimes to shed the pounds, but without success.

“I can’t exercise or even walk a lot because of the pain.”

His weight has been gradually increasing each year. “A few years ago I was 120kg now I am 180kg. What will happen to me next year?

“I need this weight to go away. I want a clean start – to go back to university, to work, to support my family. I’ve only made matters worse for them instead of supporting them,” he said, adding the medical procedure to remove 80 per cent of this stomach is his only hope for a normal life.

Hisham Al Zahrani, manager of Zakat and Social Services at Dar Al Ber said L A had become very depressed because of his weight.

“He has isolated himself from the outside world and is embarrassed to be seen by his friends. We hope the community can help him regain his confidence by contributing toward his surgery.”