REading the story, turns out it was a mixture of things:
She had a car wreck that destroyed her leg, and she could’nt walk. Add in a healthy diet of medications, and depression, and you get lots of extra weight.
She was said to eat 8 hamburgers at a sitting. Enablers.
She said she’d eat until it hurt. There’s a disease, where you never feel full.
Married at 15, first kid by 16. Emotional trainwreck.
On a side note, I had someone tell me their theory. She said she thought a lot of women from unhappy childhoods and dysfunctional backgrounds will get pregnant and gain massive amounts of weight to drive the father and other people away - they only want the unconditional love of the kids, and shut everyone else out. They become housebound, because they want to be.
Dunno. Could be.
I have met women that get depressed and then pound down the ice cream as if to say "since I'm undesireable, I'm going to make myself fat to advertise how undesireable I am."
I have done a lot of reading about parrots and there are birds that pluck themselves nude when they deem themselves unworthy for mating. Same principle, I suppose.