‘My 600-lb Life’: Grandmom’s addiction to painkillers and an abusive boyfriend triggered Bethany’s weight gain

Tonight’s episode of TLC’s ‘My 600-lb Life’ follows Bethany Stout, a 48-year-old mother of two daughters, living in constant misery. Carrying an enormous body, she weighs over 600 pounds, which has completely restricted her mobility. 

However, Bethany isn’t hesitant to express her love for food. She says she would even trade sleep for food if she had to. There hasn’t come a day when she has wanted to stop herself from eating. 

Bethany also prefers maintaining a personal space when she’s eating to avoid any sort of distraction. While this explains her dependency on food, her weight issue traces its roots back to her childhood. 

She had a rather normal childhood and shared a lot of happy memories with her grandmother, who raised her. Bethany’s parents were working professionals who couldn’t give her much attention. But, that didn’t bother Bethany as her grandmother took good care of her, usually by treating her with delicacies. 

Bethany first found solace in food when her grandmother fell sick and she had no one to take care of her. Her eating habit was further affected when her grandmother started getting addicted to her painkillers. 

And, when she was 12, her mother tried committing suicide, saying Bethany was the reason. She was devastated and turned to food to cope with the pain, which led to her gaining more weight. 

During high school, she also had to put up with an abusive boyfriend who forced her for sex and would beat her if she refused. Although she managed to break up with him, she continued to be threatened by him and her friends. 

Unable to deal with the trauma, Bethany relied on food to calm her down. By the time she was 15, Bethany weighed over 400 pounds. 

While her toxic relationship with food continued to control her life, she was brought down like never before due to postpartum depression, which affected her following her second daughter’s birth. Yet again, she attempted to drown her psychological issues in food, which has now turned her morbidly obese. 

Bethany says she has nothing to look forward to with her current weight and that she is trading everything in life for food.