A six-year-old girl with a ferocious appetite is constantly
hungry due to a rare disorder which means she never feels full.
Megan
Adams-Fitzgerald's family have to hide food from her and sometimes
eat in secret, and also have banned words such as snack and dinner being said in
front of her because she gets easily distressed if she is not allowed to eat
Megan has Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS) - a rare congenital disorder characterised
by a ferocious appetite which causes her to be constantly hungry.
The
young girl is battling an obsessive compulsion to eat because the part of her
brain which should tell her she is full up is missing,
Little
Megan is constantly hungry despite being served breakfast at 8am, a snack at
10am, lunch at 12pm on the dot, and another snack by 2pm and tea by 4pm
Her parents are unable to fulfill her hunger and the only thing
which is stopping her from becoming obese is their dedication to a carefully
controlled diet.
"Megan
is obsessive about food," said her devoted mum Tracy Fitzgerald, 35, from
Bilton.
"We
can't eat in front of her, we can't say the words dinner, food or snack in
front of her because if she hears those words she thinks it must mean it's
coming and she wants it now.
"It's
very hard on my four-year-old son, he can only eat when she eats, or we eat in
secret."
PWS is recognised as one of the most medically complex syndromes
to live with and care for by medical professionals – and there is no cure.
It affects
one in 15,000 people and in addition to the insatiable appetite, symptoms of
PWS include developmental delays, learning difficulties, stubbornness and a
fast-rising temper.
Megan can
only say a handful of words including mummy, daddy, yes and no. She cannot walk
far and struggles with tiredness.
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