Posted on 02/28/2008 7:36:49 AM PST by Conservative Mother
Jonathan McCullum was in excellent health at 155 pounds when he left last summer to spend the school year as an exchange student in Egypt. But when he returned home to Maine just four months later, the 5-foot-9 teenager weighed a mere 97 pounds and was so weak that he struggled to carry his baggage or climb a flight of stairs.
Doctors said he was at risk of a heart attack. McCullum says he was denied sufficient food while staying with a family of Coptic Christians, who fast for more than 200 days a year, a regimen unmatched by other Christians. But he does not view the experience as a culture clash.
Rather, he said, it reflected mean and stingy treatment by his host family and a language barrier that made it difficult to communicate. "The weight loss concerned me, but I wanted to stick out the whole year," he said in an interview at his family's home outside Augusta. Friends and teachers at his English-speaking school in Egypt urged him to change his host family, but he stayed put after being told that the other home was in a dangerous neighborhood of Alexandria.
After returning to the United States, he was hospitalized for nearly two weeks. The 17-year-old has regained about 20 pounds, but his parents say he's not the same boy he was when he left under the auspices of AFS Intercultural Programs. "He was outgoing, a straight-A student, very athletic," said his mother, Elizabeth McCullum, who was shocked when she met her son at the airport on Jan. 9 and saw he had lost one-third his weight. "Now, he's less spontaneous and more subdued."
Jonathan McCullum's parents said the exchange program should have warned them that students placed with Coptic families would be subject to dietary restrictions.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Somehow this just does not pass the smell test.
I agree.
There are facts missing.
What a stupid woman and stupid kid. One would think he would have had enough intelligence to call someone and go home.
American youth need Big Mac’s, fries, and Milk Shakes to keep their image of obesity....fresher than goat cheese.
155 pounds at 5’ 9” is NOT obese.
ping
Something is definitely wrong here.
Unless I’m mistaken Copts fast in the same way as Orthodox Christians, and most of us could use a diet :)
The 200+ days is accurate, but very misleading. Every Wednesday (the day Judas betrayed Christ) and Friday (the Crucifixion) we forego meat and dairy products. Virtually anything else is eaten in reasonable moderation. That accounts for about 165 days there. Other fasting periods include the Advent (pre-Christmas) and Lenten (pre-Easter) fasts for another 40+ days.
The Lenten fast is slightly more stringent, but not significantly (maybe lose a pound or two - maybe not).
It looks to me that the hosting family was profiteering off of the AFS family, unless there’s something that isn’t being said. In general, I’d have no problem sending my boys to a Coptic family when they get old enough.
Every person mentioned in this article is a complete idiot.
Simple.
He never left the house and found a restaurant in the neighborhood?
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