Prader-Willi Syndrome

I can't stop eating 

You might be wondering, what the title of this article is all about, but well, here is your answer. Did you know that there is a weird condition called Prader-Willi syndrome that won’t let people who suffer from it stop eating? This is a disease caused by a chromosomal flaw which strikes only one in 15,000 people and can cause learning issues, muscles weakness, and a slow metabolism.

The worst of it is that people mainly don’t understand the

severity and the pain that families dealing with this condition undergo, as it is the case of Tonya Wilkinson, the mother of Hannah Wilkinson that is fighting this condition since she was 14 years old. 

The consequences of it have led Tonya to lock every place in the house where food is placed and not only this, you might be thinking, oh! this is all a lie, she is just eating as a whim, but actually the feeling of being hungry all the time is so critical, that when she didn’t find food, she ate the dog food and not only this, another prove is that the hypothalamus, the part of our brain that controls our hunger, with children or adults with Prader-Willi Syndrome, is pretty much shut off, so they don't know that they're not hungry.

These families already go through so much and in addition to this, they don’t even have the backup of the health insurance for treatments to control this disease, since insurance companies consider it to be their own fault. They consider it to be a matter of gluttony and sloth, so because insurers still view obesity as a behavior, Prader-Willi sometimes gets swept under the rug.

Enough is enough, we need to stop being so ignorant and start putting ourselves in others' shoes, and we must show compassion and let people know that they aren’t alone in this battle called life.

By Isabella Duarte, Step 10