Woman admits she fears the weight of her enormous stomach will ‘break her back’

But while Ashley’s addiction to eating, and her life-threatening obesity, have certainly worsened in recent years, she reveals that her problems stretch back over more than two decades, when her unhealthy relationship with food first began. 

Ashley began piling on weight at the age of six, when she was abandoned by her drug addict mother and then sexually abused by the babysitter who was assigned to take care of her. Left with few family members or friends to offer her any kind of emotional support, Ashley turned to food for comfort – and quickly gained weight.

In another preview clip posted by People, Ashley admits that she blames her mom for her emotional addiction to food, explaining that, as the oldest of her siblings, she felt a duty to look after them whenever their mother wasn’t around – which was, in reality, almost all of the time.

‘If my mother had been paying attention I think she could’ve changed a lot of stuff that was going on,’ she says in the video.

As the oldest one, I felt like I had to protect my brother and sister because they were really little. So I let it happen to me, so it wouldn’t happen to them.’

When she reached the age of eight, Ashley and her siblings were taken in by their father, who won custody of them. But although she felt safer, her eating habits didn’t change, and she continued to pile on weight.

By the time she reached high school, the mother-of-one weighed more than 400lbs.

After marrying her husband, and getting pregnant, Ashley’s weight continued to spiral out of control, reaching 570lbs while she was carrying her son, and then continuing to increase from there, as her relationship broke down and she faced life as a single mother.

Ashley admits that, if her weight continues to spiral, she will soon be unable to do perform even the most basic tasks like standing up and washing herself.