I could die any day says 40 stone Birmingham City fan Barry Austin

Nov 8 2009 by Adam Aspinall, Sunday Mercury

“The doctors have said they could take it out, but that they better not because it could kill me.

“I have been in and out of hospital almost every other day – it feels like I have a season ticket there.

“I just keep getting infection, upon infection, upon infection, and having diabetes does not help matters either.

“I have lost weight, but in many ways I am in the worst state I have ever been. I can’t go out at all, I need people to help me get dressed, to put my shoes on and things like that.

“It is a vicious circle. I can’t do any exercise because I’m in bed up to 19 hours a day, which means I can’t lose any weight. That means I’m left stuck in bed and my legs get worse and worse.”

Barry has struggled with his weight since he was a young child.

But he said he believes his life-threatening eating habits were encouraged by the fleeting fame he found a few years ago.

A tabloid favourite and TV regular, he became a household name in Birmingham and a fascinating real-life horror show across the nation.

But his crown as the fattest man in Britain was recently taken by Norwich man Paul Mason, 48, who has become the world’s heaviest – weighing in at a staggering 70 stone last month.

“I got sucked into the media thinking it was glamorous,” said Barry.

“I was flattered by all the attention and took it for all it was worth, eating at the best restaurants and running up huge tabs.

“But the truth was I was just being exploited as a cruel joke. I could not admit it because it was justifying the awful way I was living my life.

“Instead of spurring me on to change, it just made me get even worse.

“But then the phone stops ringing and all you have got is yourself.

“It was a very difficult lesson to learn.

“I know I am in the last chance saloon now. Otherwise I’m going to die very soon.

“I look at people like Paul Mason and part of me wonders if he saw those TV shows I did and thought it was OK to be like that.

“Did he see me downing pints and eating curries and think: ‘Yeah, that looks like the lifestyle for me’?

“It really worries me that I have had a terrible influence on people like him because I was stupid.

“I should have been sectioned for the way I was behaving back then, I really should. But I fell for the glamour of that world, and was just taken for a ride.”

Barry has not given up media work entirely.

He is the inspiration behind a new ITV comedy drama written by Caroline Aherne, The Fattest Man in Britain, which will be shown next month and stars Timothy Spall in a huge latex fat-suit.

It tells the story of Georgie, an obese character who is confined to a chair. He is faced with the dilemma of losing weight and putting a stop to hordes of fascinated tourists showing up at his home – or beating his rival “Big Barry” to achieve the fattest man title.

But Barry feels he has “grown up” a lot in the last few years and will not let his head be turned by the razzle-dazzle of the media world again.

He says he is now more determined then ever to shed his extra pounds so that he can leave his house for the first time in months.

He also wants to act as a warning to young people about the danger of becoming obese.

He said: “I have let a lot of people down over the years. I have really messed people about saying I was going to change, but never doing anything about it, and I know I have hurt a lot of people.

“But at the end of the day the only person I have been really hurting is myself.

“I’m not on a diet at the moment and the food I eat is a nightmare, but I am trying my best to change and I am determined to leave the house by the end of next year.

“When I see my friends leading normal lives and doing normal things, like working and going on holiday, it makes me really sad and brings home to me what a fool I have been.

“The next step for me now is to lose ten stone. I think I can do that, but the most important thing is that I am a lesson for children.

“I want kids to look at me and realise that this is how they could end up if they are not careful.

“There is nothing fun about it – it is a living nightmare.”