Little People Struggle with Obesity in New Docu-Series: 'Our Height Plateaus and Then Our Weight Increases'
A two-part TLC docu-series will follow the journeys of two morbidly obese little people as they spend nine months trying to transform their bodies.
One of the people looking to make a change is Ayanna Brown, who weighed 215 lbs. at 3’9″ at the beginning of her journey.
“When I look in the mirror I think, ‘Oh my God, I’m so fat,’ ” Brown, 23, says in this exclusive sneak peek of Big & Little, which premieres Wednesday night.
The teaser explains that approximately 1 in 40,000 children is born with dwarfism, many of whom go on to experience extreme obesity.
“It’s like our height plateaus and then our weight increases,” says Brown in the clip.
The special will also follow Chuck Love, a 31-year-old aspiring radio host who weighed 164 lbs. at 3’6″.
“A dwarf has a regular-sized torso and shorter limbs, so we have the same size stomach as everyone else, so we have the same size appetite,” explains Love, who had become so overweight that he was barely able to dress himself.
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After losing his job, Love moved back home and spent his days eating and watching TV.
“It’s like you’re stuck in a dead end with nowhere to go,” he says in the clip.
Love and Brown will work with personal trainer and sports nutritionist Allison Warrell to lose the weight. Warrell is also a little person who went through a weight loss transformation of her own, and now competes as a woman’s physique bodybuilder.
“I’ve tried to lose weight on my own — it never worked,” says Brown. “I’m ready to work out the rest of these months and see how far I get.”
Big & Little airs Wednesday May 24 and May 31 at 10/9c on TLC.
