Morbid fascination

I saw a truly dispiriting, yet at the same time (somewhat) uplifting documentary last night about morbid obesity. It featured an American man who was a compulsive eater and who had got so hugely fat that all he could do was lie on a bed with his fat covering him like a big pink blanket. He went into hospital, went on a diet, had his stomach stapled and subsequently lost half his weight - down to a svelte 45 stone. That was the (somewhat) uplifting part.

It was narrated by a woman speaking in that cool English way which says so much without overstating anything: "Do you eat a lot?" she purred innocently, as the camera panned across a kitchen wasteland of empty supersize pizza boxes, industrial sized packets of crisps, upturned soda cans and half-eaten cakes. ("I have a normal diet", he replied.)