‘My 600-lb Life’: Overeating has crushed Carlton's confidence while food is like a drug for his sister Shantel

Tonight’s episode of TLC’s Season 8 of ‘My 600-lb Life’ presents us the story of morbidly obese siblings Carlton and Shantel Oglesby, from Columbus. 

While Cartlon weighs over 700 pounds at the age of 24, his sister Shantel is 31 and weighs around 600 pounds. For Carlton, the hardest part of the day is cleaning himself up as he can’t reach all the spots in his body. His sister is living the same life as him upstairs. 

Shantel is taken care of by her husband, Michael, and the couple has two children. She spends the entire day in her room owing to her minimal movement. She hasn’t been out of the house in years and is now living to only eat.

Food has always been an important part of the siblings’ life and only eating enables them to move around. Reflecting on their childhood issues, Carlton and Shantel reveal they turned to food for comfort at an early age to cope with an abusive father.

However, their mother, Roshini was in good terms with them and would often sneak food to feed her children in her husband’s presence.

Unable to put up with his behavior, Roshini separated from Carlton and Shantel’s father. However, the children ended up eating more after moving away from their father as he couldn’t stop them anymore.

Carlton weighed 300 pounds by the time he was 11 and was subjected to bullying. And when his sister went to college, he started eating more. He gained more weight by the age of 15 and had to drop out of school eventually. 
 
Shantel dropped out of college as well owing to her enormous frame and just stayed in her apartment binge eating all day. 

She met Michael at the age of 23, who was least bothered about her weight. They married a year later and lived a happy life. However, when she had her first child Michael Jr, she gained over 100 pounds, which got worse when she gave birth to her second child a few years later.

Meanwhile, Carlton has been chatting with Monica for quite some time now and wants to ask her out on a date, but his overweight and under-confidence is stopping him from approaching her. 

Sick of the lives they are leading, Shantel and Carlton want to turn things around before it's too late, hence resorting to weight loss surgery.