Would you imagine a 14-year-old kid being put under hypertension drugs?
It is unthinkable but this was a reality for one Dr Catherine Wangechi Mbuthia whose life revolved around heavy feeding to a point she became too heavy to even walk around.
At 10, she weighed 89kgs and was diagnosed with juvenile hypertension. She had to be put on hypertensive drugs immediately but this was not enough; her feet would swell and get blisters due to the strain involved.
She recalls having had to deal with wearing crocs through high school as not shoe would do her good in her condition. But Dr Wangechi now a medic would still eat as much as she would.
Dr Wangechi told Dr Susan Adongo, an obstetrician and gynaecologist at Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi that she ate 30 biscuits daily each stuck against a thick layer of Blue Band.
She recalled eating a whole tray of eggs alone some time back while in high school. She did not mind much about her weight and this ruffled feathers with her father who complained of the high cost of her treatment.
Although she ate until breaks of sweat formed on her face and the entire body, Dr Wangechi was a smart chap and made it to medical school where she was body-shamed for the first time.
“I was rejected at home and now rejected in school. I had found something to take away the pain – food – and until you have felt my pain, you shouldn’t judge me.”
While in her third year, she decided to change her lifestyle but it was occasioned her missing out on her sister’s wedding as a bride’s maid. She was weighing 110kgs at the time.
“I looked older than my mother so there was no way she was going to allow me to be a bridesmaid,” she recalled.
Challenged, she took to running three times a day which was hard at first but she managed to lose 18kgs in just a few months but weighed 92 kgs.
This was not enough. A good enough challenge with results, she continued with her runs and in under a year, she weighed 62kgs from 110kgs. Most of her colleagues thought she has a terminal illness or was using slimming pills but alas! It was the runs and a new diet.
When she decided to change her lifestyle, Wangechi immediately cut down on her food intake and this helped a lot in bringing her weight down.
Life changed and she got more friends; she was no longer a loner who would drag her feet around campus and people threw dirty looks on her.
Since the day she managed to cut on her weight, her hypertension disappeared. She currently weighs 68kgs and is happy and confident in her looks.