All-you-can-eat mum will never get fat

Date published: 31 August 2011

A MUM-OF-TWO who can eat anything she wants and never get fat says her rare condition is making her miserable.

While most women might think being able to tuck into cream cakes without worrying about piling on the pounds is a dream come true, Carole French says she wishes she could put on weight.

The 51-year-old, from Abbeyhills, is one of only two people in the world to be diagnosed with a muscular disorder that means her body can’t store fat.

Carole can munch away on takeaways, fry-ups and huge slabs of toast dripping in butter as much as she likes — but still only tips the scales at 6st.

She is so thin that she is forced to wear children’s clothes. Even a size zero hangs from her tiny frame.

But Carole is bombarded with taunts and stares every time she leaves the house. Strangers even try to take her picture and make cruel jibes about her.

The youngest of three sisters, Carole said: “So many people tell me I’m lucky to be so thin, but I just wish I could put on weight.

“Since I was a teenager, people have always assumed I was anorexic — but nothing could be further from the truth.

“I remember visiting Tommyfield Market with my mum when I was young. As we walked round, my mum heard another woman say ‘I bet she doesn’t feed her daughter!’.

“Mum was so angry that she confronted the woman and gave her a piece of her mind.

“I eat like a horse — I never skip meals and I treat myself to a Chinese takeaway once a week. People can be really cruel — I know I look different, but I don’t choose to look the way I do.

“People stop and stare at me and take pictures of me like I’m in some kind of freak show. It’s really upsetting.”

Carole, who is 5ft 4in tall, always puts away at least 2,000 calories a day — the recommended daily intake for a woman — and occasionally washes it down with a pint of stout.

Carole was born a normal size, but her parents soon noticed she was different when she took much longer to sit, crawl, and walk than other children her age.

By the time she started school, it was obvious to her classmates that she was not the same as them. She was tiny, and her arms and legs were stick-thin.

By the age of 13, Carole weighed only 4st, leaving her parents terrified that she was suffering from an eating disorder.

Manchester-born Carole, who moved to Chadderton when she was 15, said: “When I was a teenager, I was always picked on by the other children. They used to call me ‘stick insect’ and say I was anorexic. Even my parents thought I was doing something to myself to avoid putting on weight.

“But I was desperate to look like my friends, who were all developing curves and beautiful figures. I stuffed myself with carbs and mum’s huge roast dinners, but nothing seemed to work.

“Even when my mum took me to the doctor, they referred me to hospital to make sure I wasn’t bulimic or anorexic.

“It took doctors a year to diagnose me with muscular fibrositis disproportion. There was only one other person with it in the world, a lady in South Africa, who I’d love to meet one day.

“The condition means I don’t have as many muscles as a normal person and virtually no body fat.

“It leaves me constantly exhausted and I’m likely to develop osteoporosis and arthritis. There’s no cure for it. I’ve just had to learn to live with it.

“My husband Steve and two sons Neil and Mark say I’m perfect just the way I am. Loads of my friends say they’d love to swap their body problems for mine, but I remind them of all the stares and comments I have to put up with.

“There’s nothing I can do to change my body.”