Dying to be thin

Angela Cathie, 42, Darwen, Lancashire

Flinging back the curtains, the room flooded with light.

‘It’s a lovely day out, Mum, ’ I said.

My mum, Christine, then 55, squinted, shielding her eyes. It was a beautiful day in August 2010, but you wouldn’t have known it in her house.

She spent most of her days on the sofa with the curtains closed.

‘Fancy a walk?’ I asked. ‘Not today, ’ Mum smiled. When I was growing up, Mum had been overweight but bubbly and cuddly.

Now though, she’d got bigger and it got her down.

At 5ft 4in, she weighed 26st