'My 600-lb Life': JT says parents' drug addiction got him entangled in the vicious cycle of overeating
Tonight's episode of 'My 600-lb Life' features a morbidly obese Julius 'JT' Clark, whose weight is unknown. Taken care of by his girlfriend Jessica, JT wakes up to eat and says that's all he ever wants to do.
Living an alienated life due to his enormous body and an overgrown lymphoma, the only thing that comforts JT is food. The condition has put his life at risk and it also restricts him from moving around and even fitting into places.
Following years of battle with his own body, JT is now scared about getting to a point where he can't even clean himself.
However, he wasn't hesitant to state that the pain in his body is overpowered by the pain caused in him due to lack of food. Nothing in his life beats what food can do for him. He likes food better than sex as there is no pain or judgment.
Although it seems like JT's passion for food triggered his weight gain, his crippling condition traces its roots back to his childhood, which was pleasant, until it wasn't.
Looking back in time, JT said that some of the happiest times of his life were when he was young. He was the oldest of his siblings and belonged from a family that did not do so well financially. However, he and his siblings grew up eating free food at a restaurant his father worked at.
For JT, who led a pretty normal life until then, things turned dark when his parents started doing drugs and invested all their income in satisfying their growing addiction.
As their absence in his life became more prominent, JT turned to food to seek comfort, which tripled his weight by the time he was 13.
He took up a job at a restaurant when he was 18 to cope with his depression. Food became his passion. He got a sense of joy from feeding others and eating it himself. However, by 22 he weighed at least 600 pounds and also began developing a mass on his left leg, which was diagnosed as lymphoma.
Things have only gotten worse for JT since then. Although he's been warned that his weight could kill, he is rather worried about losing food than getting his life back on track.