This story is a very
tragic story today. How does a child,
born at normal weight, grow to weigh nearly 700
pounds by the time she's 13? And who is responsible for that? Take a look. WOMAN 1: Marlene Corrigan
is accused of endangering her daughter's life by not-- MAN 1: The child weighed
680 pounds the day she died. WOMAN 2: Been to a
doctor since 1992. WOMAN 3: Her body was
covered with bed sores. MAN 2: That deserves
criminal charges. (ECHOING) Criminal charges. MARLENE CORRIGAN: I
was a good parent. I did everything that I thought
a normal parent should do. (ECHOING) Parent should
do, parent should do. OPRAH WINFREY: Those are the
words of Marlene Corrigan after the tragic death
of her 680 pound, 13-year-old daughter Christina. But with the case
making headlines all over the world, many
are asking, was that enough? Christina Corrigan was born
weighing about eight pounds, but quickly, Christina's weight
just went off the charts. By age three, she
weighed 60 pounds. By age eight, she weighed
almost 240 pounds. Christina saw a
doctor over 90 times. But eventually she got
discouraged and stopped going. In less than five
years, her weight tripled to over 600 pounds. It seemed that Christina became
a prisoner in her own home and her own body. She stopped going to school
and rarely left the house. Eventually, her 13-year-old
body just gave up. Ultimately she could not
sustain all the weight, and died of heart
failure at 13 years old-- 680 pounds. Her body was found
covered in bedsores, in feces, and her own urine. Christina's mother was
questioned about her death, and eight months
later was charged with felony child abuse. Marlene was facing up
to six years in prison. MARLENE CORRIGAN: Well,
what are you to do? Lock your child in a room
and stop them from eating? Then I will be up for
child abuse or child neglect for not feeding her. OPRAH WINFREY: The judge
lessened her charge and only convicted
her of a misdemeanor. She is now awaiting sentencing. Marlene Corrigan says that
her ability as a mother should never have been on trial,
but the question does remain-- did Christina's
life have to end? Christina's mother Marlene
is here today with us in Amarillo in her very
first television interview since her recent conviction
on charges of child abuse. She is joined by her
attorney Michael Cardoza. The question we just
asked in the videotape-- did her life have to
end the way it did? In hindsight, looking
back over her life, there might have been things
that maybe we could have done. Maybe I could have been
a more aggressive parent. I tend to be a
laid-back type person. But all throughout Christina's
life, we really, really tried. She tried very hard, and I
did, to control her weight. And there was nothing,
absolutely nothing, that we were aware of that
could prevent the weight from keep on adding on. OPRAH WINFREY: Did she
have some kind of-- well, obviously she was
very much overweight. But was there a medical reason
connected to the reason, responsible for her
gaining weight so rapidly? Oprah, I was raised to
trust the doctors and the HMO that I was going to. I really trusted
Christina's pediatrician. She did thyroid
tests on Christina, and there was no problem
with her thyroid. And the only advice that
the doctor would give me would be diet and exercise,
diet and exercise. OPRAH WINFREY: And did
she diet and exercise? MARLENE CORRIGAN: Yes, she
did diet, and she exercised. We went to the doctor every week
and got weighed and monitored. The doctor would monitor
the food that she was eating and everything. Christina would put on two or
three pounds at every weigh in. And-- OPRAH WINFREY: Was
she exercising? What kind of exercise? Swimming, walking, bicycling. She liked to play tether-ball
and sports at school, but there was absolutely
nothing that the doctor told me at that time
that I could pursue. Did the doctor
put her on a diet? On a pyramid-type diet. Well, we went to a
nutritionist that gave us a pyramid
diet where you eat so many different exchanges. And-- OPRAH WINFREY: And did
she follow that program? MARLENE CORRIGAN: She
followed that program. OPRAH WINFREY: And instead
of losing weight, she gained? MARLENE CORRIGAN: She gained.
She kept gaining and gaining. OPRAH WINFREY: And
what would the doctor say when that happened? Eat less, exercise more. She had no-- and at that time, I
didn't know that there could be other problems existing, like a
genetic or glandular something, that maybe I should
have pursued. OPRAH WINFREY: So she wasn't
tested for any of those? MARLENE CORRIGAN: No. OPRAH WINFREY: How many
doctors did you go to? MARLENE CORRIGAN: Well, in
the HMO that Christina-- that I belonged to-- she had one pediatrician
assigned to her. But we must have seen,
throughout the years, a dozen doctors. OPRAH WINFREY: So she stopped
going to school in what year? MARLENE CORRIGAN: After the
sixth grade, when she was going to go into the seventh grade,
she quit going to school because, number one, the
physical layout of the school was built on a hill with many,
many stairs to go up and down. OPRAH WINFREY: And she
couldn't physically-- MARLENE CORRIGAN:
Physically it-- OPRAH WINFREY:
--get up the stairs. MARLENE CORRIGAN: --was
very difficult for her. And then the harassing
from the other kids. The older kids tended to
tease her and taunt her, and she just didn't want
to deal with it any longer. When she was younger,
she was spunky. She had a good
attitude about her. But when she was in her
pre-teens, like any pre-teen, she was self-conscious. OPRAH WINFREY: I read
in the newspaper-- and you can't believe
everything you read-- MARLENE CORRIGAN: True. But I certainly
read in the newspaper where the report of her death
was described as her last days. And last days, last
weeks, she suffered. She was bloated, she was
in her own feces, she was-- you're shaking your
head, as a lawyer. MICHAEL CARDOZA: I
am shaking my head. - Because that's not true?
- That's absolutely not true. No, no. She became incontinent
when she died, and that's what the
papers picked up. And that's what got
sensationalized. So when you read
or when you hear that she lived in her
own feces and urine, it was absolutely untrue. OPRAH WINFREY: That is not true? That is not true. How did you find out that-- were you home when she passed? MARLENE CORRIGAN: Yeah, I
stayed home with her that day. She had what we
thought was a cold. She had a lot of congestion. I had a cold the week before,
so I stayed home with her. She had asked me. Did she have bedsores? That was also reported.
Was that true or not? MARLENE CORRIGAN: Well, to the
extent that it was reported, I was not aware of
all those bed sores. OPRAH WINFREY: Because-- She had a couple
of sores on her legs that I knew about, but certainly
not hundreds of bed sores. Had she been lying
there in the same position for days, weeks?
MARLENE CORRIGAN: No. No? That's another
misconception of her. She did get up and move around.
She did not-- OPRAH WINFREY: Could
she move around? How much could she move
around at 680 pounds? Not a lot.
OPRAH WINFREY: Not a lot. She couldn't jump
up and move around, but she did move around. In fact, she would even go out
and get the mail or newspaper. But Christina herself
is the one that wanted to be confined to the house.
She did not-- OPRAH WINFREY: And she took care
of her own personal hygiene, right?
She didn't want you to help? Of course. She was 13 years old. So do you think she did
an adequate job of that? Um, probably not. But at that time I was
caring for elderly parents, too, that were terminally ill. And I was pretty spread thin. So if she said she washed up-- I, you know, took a
shower and everything. OPRAH WINFREY: But
you were living-- And I was working, too.
OPRAH WINFREY: --there with her. You can see her. You can-- you were
living there with her. You can see her. MARLENE CORRIGAN:
Right, it was adequate. OK, OK, you think
it was adequate? MARLENE CORRIGAN: Right. OPRAH WINFREY: OK, and you were
taking care of your parents? MARLENE CORRIGAN: Yes.
- Yeah. MARLENE CORRIGAN: And they
both died that year also, so. OPRAH WINFREY: It was a
terrible year for you. Oh, we are truly a
sandwich generation. I mean, taking care
of your children and your parents, whatnot. OPRAH WINFREY: Do you think-- I've read, and we heard
you say on the tape, that you did the
best that you could. Do you think that the best
that you could was good enough? No. Looking back in hindsight
now, of course I-- I think all parents, no matter
what you do with your children, you always think, well, I
could have done this better. I could have done that better. Even with my son, who's
in college and doing well, I always think-- OPRAH WINFREY: Is your
son also overweight? MARLENE CORRIGAN: No.
OPRAH WINFREY: OK. MARLENE CORRIGAN:
No, he's normal. OPRAH WINFREY: When you say
that-- you said to us, just as you were here, that you
thought that maybe, you know, you were a laid-back person,
and perhaps maybe you could have been more aggressive. Do you think you were
not aggressive enough? Probably not. Christiana was a
very strong-willed personality versus my kind of
laid-back, you know, person-- OPRAH WINFREY: But she's
13 and you're the mom. MARLENE CORRIGAN:
Oh, but that's-- you know, it's very difficult
to make a person that large, that doesn't want to do
something, to make them do it. I tried motivating
her in every-- OPRAH WINFREY: So
you're saying she wasn't large just because she
was sitting around eating? MARLENE CORRIGAN: Oh, no. No, no. Christina never ate
as many calories as it would have taken
to maintain that weight. There was something
definitely wrong. And unfortunately, they
never did an autopsy. And I'll never know if she
had a glandular, or genetic, or some type of problem. But no, she never ate that much. OPRAH WINFREY: We're going
to talk to your lawyer in a few moments. And I know what every--
what I'm thinking. And I'm sure that a lot of
other people are thinking this. OK, you might be a
laid-back person, and you're a passive person,
but when you see your daughter going from 200
pounds to 300 pounds, and then gaining an
enormous amount of-- what, 420 pounds is 680 pounds. Something inside yourself-- I don't know. Does it say, I've
got to do something? This isn't normal. I've always-- I was
always, throughout Christian's whole
life, very, very concerned about her weight. I tried to get help even from
the social services people, and there was nothing that
they could provide me. It's-- you know-- OPRAH WINFREY: You thought
she was going to outgrow it? [COUGH] Excuse me. I thought that she would-- well, I don't know
about outgrow it. I know Christina would probably
always have a weight problem, but as she got older-- like myself--
probably take it off. Which, I have, you know,
all through my life I've had a weight problem. I've had a-- my
mother was obese. So it's not something new to me. We've lived with
obesity in my family. OPRAH WINFREY: But
your son is not? No. OPRAH WINFREY: OK.
Wtf? How come the doctor who saw her 90 times and weighed every week never bothered to report carer who obviously isn't capable of taking care of the child?
It's absolutely despicable the lengths that this woman goes to blame her own daughter for her awful life and death. Christina quit going to school because "she didn't want to." Christina was in charge of her own hygiene. Christina was just so stubborn. The only responsibility this awful woman is willing to take is "I should have been more aggressive."
I notice that they didn't show any photos of her at 600 lbs or higher. They showed photos of her when she was morbidly obese but nothing that looked remotely like her maximum weight. I don't know that they're deliberately downplaying her size --- it's entirely possible she wouldn't allow photos of herself at that weight --- but it kind of has the effect of smoothing out the sharpest edges of what this sort of parental neglect did to her.
FFS, do you think, as a CHILD I enjoyed getting braces on my teeth for YEARS, or getting vaccinations, or taking that foul medicine when I got strep throat? Or cleaning my room? Or sharing with my little sister even when it didn't seem fair? Or being nice to the mean kid?
Yeah, no kid (or ANYONE!) likes discomfort or to be contradicted, but am I happy that someone made me do those things? HELL YES.
I am a better person because of the way I was raised (and my parents always insisted on those things with respect and love, not brute punishment)
I wonder if FA advocates could sleep at night knowing that they are in part responsible for this.
I was trying to find out if she got sentenced/what her sentence was and where she is now but I did find this LA Times article
There were fat acceptance advocates at the conviction in support of the mother. In 1998. Disgusting.
I can’t really deal with whatever awful thing happened here but I’d be willing to bet this was what we used to cal Munchassen Syndrome by Proxy. It’s ugly and the illness isn’t always faked, sometimes it is intentionally inflicted on someone else. It’s almost always a parent-child situation but it doesn’t have to be.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/factitious-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20356028
This is so sad.
This is insane! I was a little over 200 pounds at her age which is obese and I was so miserable. I can’t believe it’s possible for anyone, especially at that age, to be over 600!