I wonder why it sometimes happens like that? In the picture of him before, if you imagine deflating his tummy, it doesn't look as if the skin would hang down as much as it does in the after pic.

Is it because he lost weight so quickly? It's not clear when he exactly he lost the weight, but it's 15 stone down either since February (the balloon, which I presume didn't work because he went on to have more surgery?) or October (gastric surgery?). Either way, it's really fast loss and we're told that fast loss can make the loose skin problem worse.

Poor guy. He's waiting for the op on the NHS, so hopefully his life will get better then. Meanwhile, it looks like he could do with some sort of support garment, but I don't know if such a thing exists!

I saw him on this morning, it is strange how far the skin hangs and it must not be very pleasant for him day to day. He had the balloon initially because it would have been to dangerous for him to have the op to begin with because of the weight. However getting the skin removed on the nhs will be difficult because he said he still smoked.

this is more than just loose skin, I have seen something very similar to this. I cant go into details about it because its not my story to tell. but it isnt all weight related, I feel for this guy and hope he gets the op he needs to have it removed. life will be a struggle for him until he gets surgery. someone said is it because hes lost the weight quickly no it wont be its a problem his weight was probably hiding. I wish him all the best and hopes for a great outcome and good on him for loosing the weight.

I hope the Sun have given him enough money from selling his story to get it sorted. It is good to know the risks with surgery.

I hope the Sun have given him enough money from selling his story to get it sorted. It is good to know the risks with surgery.

Seriously. I saw on the news that it has 100% complication rate... 100%!!

Unfortunately this often happens with people who have been over 35 stone and then lost over 50% of that weight. Skin simply isn't elastic enough to contract back once stretched that far. I personally know two people like this one is my younger sister and the other became a bit of celeb when TV followed their journey.

Both need skin ops but cannot afford` them.

I think this will become more common in the future and the NHS will introduce the procedure as a cheaper option than treating obesity related problems.

I've read a few interesting articles on overweight people that have lost a lot of weight and do not have the problem with excess skin hanging, The reason being is that it;s not the excess skin that causes the problem but remaining fat deposits that, once the weight has started to be lost, doesn't have the support it used to have and the fat then hangs.

According to some of the studies/articles I've read if a person is patient and loses the remaining fat around the gut the skin has a very good chance of shrinking; regardless of age and previous weight.

The link below is to another article about a 51 year old woman that dropped from 20 stone and developed complications and whilst she developed other complications she doesn't have the usual "loose skin" syndrome as there is no fat around her stomach.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/woman/4825657/leeds-woman-goes-from-20st-to-just-6st-in-a-year.html

This is an extreme example but there are other articles that proof this point.