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As one who recently moved to a normal size casket, I must say that something CAN be done about this. Believe me, I was headed for a similar size casket myself, I was 3/5 of the way there!

It's not easy but it can be done. Eating less and more exercise. Yes, it can be done, despite the protestations that will come from many who read this. But stay away from the fad diets like the low-fat ones. Just cut the junk out of your diet and eat plenty of natural foods like meat, fish, vegetables, berries, cheese, nuts and olive oil. And exercise, exercise, exercise.

What's Eating Gilbert Grape is a great movie. A cult classic. That movie deals with a woman who is similarly obese. Not an easy way to live. You can have sympathy for her but your sympathy will not help her. In fact, it will likely encourage her to make no positive changes in her life.

When I started climbing towards 300 pounds and losing all my energy, I had people starting to joke about me getting so fat. It definitely was a motivating factor in me reversing the trend and now I am giving many of them a hard time (in a good natured way) because I am now slimmer than most of them! And getting slimmer still.

We do not have both sides of the story here. It could be that the family did not want to pay for a special order casket and the funeral home was doing their best to accomodate them with the largest casket they had in stock. We just do not know and we should not jump to the conclusion that the funeral home was being inconsiderate or unprofessional. They could have been in a no-win situation with this. We're talking 500 pounds of woman here!

You're right! We don't have both sides of the story. I work in the funeral industry and can tell you that the casket never would have left the chapel if it wouldn't close. Nor would anyone ask the family to sit on the casket to try and close it.
If there are ever any major problems we encounter, we never discuss, or do any of the drastic things in front of the family. This is of course only based on my experience and training. This all doesn't make sense.

Sam your weight loss is commendable, but if you read the story carefully it said the family asked several times if their mother would fit in the casket. It does not appear through that line of questioning that they were unwilling to purchase something bigger. They had the ASSURANCE of the funeral home that their mother would fit. I can understand why the family felt betrayed.

You are right, we don't know all sides, perhaps the funeral home(and there appears to be more support for this story) didn't want to keep the large woman on ice for a few more days while they waited for a special order casket, nor did they want to make the effort for a woman "less then human"(if you look at any of the comments on this thread) to do anything special. Instead they lied to the family, or misjudged if I'm being generous, in order to push this "unpleasant" burial out in normal time.

Based on this story, I'm erring on the side of the family. At the very least, the funeral attendees have no business sitting on top of a casket trying to close it. That is reprehensible!

I commend you for turning around and denying death another early customer. I am the oldest of six kids, and much fitter then my two brothers.

I was helping the youngest brother Chris roof his house and a neighbor came over and told him; "Tell your 'little' brothers to come down for a minute, I need to talk to him 'bout sumething." It was a shock to him and he made changes after that jump started his thinking process.

I have never smoked, haven't drunk in 14 years - not that I drank much when I was trying to fit in and be social in the Army, mind you - and weigh much less then Chris.

I was amused, but he wasn't, and he lost the pregnant male look with a little motivation. Part of which was sibling rivalry.

People don't often fully realize that there is cronological aging, and there is aging that comes from environment and bad habits.

Death of the body is inevitable; but for cripes sake there is no reason to invite it early, or to be so infirmed from your abuses of it you don't enjoy life.

My mother died April First of cancer and weighted next to nothing from it. She tried to go three rounds with chemo and fought tenaciously for life.

She had worked hard all her life and died two years after retiring. She neve got to enjoy fully the sunset years like she dreamed she would. She smoked two packs a day religiously from her mid teens until she was at death's door - sneaking in a puff when she could get away with it.

Food, booze, nicotine, or whatever; is it really worth the price the abuse of those things exact on people and those they love? No way.

Good luck getting to your goal weight, and my congradulations for being strong enough to beat the worst part of your nature that was doing you in by inches.

The woman in this story obviously lacked role models, or people who could have given her the sort of introspective insight it takes to get up and fight to stay among the living as long as she could.

That is the saddest part of this story. The too small coffin is only a footnote to it.

i absolutely agree with you. i lost over a third of my body weight a few years ago by cutting back on junk and processed foods and concentrating on eating at least 5 fresh fruits and veggies a day. no gimmicks. no fads. just common sense. there were actually people insisting that i must have an eating disorder to be losing so much weight.

i'm guessing that the family didn't want to pay for a custom casket or couldn't afford it.