A morbidly obese baby has baffled doctors as she tips the scales at nearly 19Kg.
Chahat Kumar was born an average weight but started ballooning in size at the age of four months.
Now eight months old, the bouncing baby weighs the same as an average four-year-old.
Dad Suraj Kumar, 23, from from Punjab, India, said: “When Chahat was born, she was completely normal. Then, slowly we saw that her weight was shooting up.
“Her weight is increasing day by day.”
Her parents are baffled by what is causing their daughter's insatiable appetite and are now growing increasingly worried for Chahat’s health.
Chahat’s mother Reena, 21, explained: “Before Chahat, we had a son who died, and then Chahat was born. Now, we have a single child only and I don’t want to lose her. I am concerned about her health.”
Worried Reena, who lost her first baby in childbirth, estimates that Chahat eats four times the amount of food of a normal-sized child her age.
She said: “She doesn’t eat like a normal kid. She keeps eating all the time. If we don’t give her anything to eat, she starts crying.
She cries to go out but her weight is too much and we are not able to pick her up. So we only take her to nearby places.”
Chahat’s parents deny that her extreme weight gain has anything to do with her upbringing.
Dad Suraj said: “It’s not our fault. God gave this condition to her. It’s not in our hands. I feel bad when some people laugh at her for being fat.”
Due to the excessive weight the baby is now experiencing problems with both her breathing and sleeping. And her condition has even baffled the family’s local doctor in Punjab.
Unfortunately Chahat also suffers from abnormally hard skin which has made taking blood samples to analyse her condition more difficult, and the family lack the funds needed to travel further afield for more advanced medical treatment.
Reena explained: “We don’t have enough money for her treatment but we do our best to make sure she gets well. But the problem is with her skin. Her skin is so hard that doctors have failed to take a sample from her body.”
The Kumar’s doctor, Vasudev Sharma confirmed that the difficulty with taking blood samples has made a medical diagnosis very difficult.
He said: “This is the first case I’ve seen in my life where a child’s weight has been shooting up so much four to five months after birth.”
But the blood test couldn’t be carried out because the fat on the baby’s body was too much, and because of that, the blood test wasn’t done properly. We have tried it many times. Her skin is so hard that we can’t ever diagnose her condition.”
Dr Sharma has recommended that the family visit a Pediatric specialist at the Civil Hospital in Amritsar, but the family’s financial restraints has so far made this impossible.
But Dr Sharma is certain that Chahat’s growing size needs to be addressed.
He said: “Her weight is increasing excessively and it has to be controlled. She has to eat less. She eats like a 10-year-old kid.”
And while the family continue to search for answers, mum Reena dreams of her daughter having a brighter, lighter future.
She said: “We want Chahat to be able to play like normal kids. We don’t want her to have difficulties in the future. We want a good future for her.”
Diabetes is on the rise in America's kids
Meanwhile, the rate at which America's kids are diagnosed with diabetes is climbing and researchers don't know why.
A first-ever study of new diabetes diagnoses of U.S. youth under age 20 found both Types 1 and 2 diabetes surged from 2002-2012.
The diagnosis of new cases of Type 2 diabetes, associated with obesity, increased about 5% each year from 2002 to 2012, the study said, while new cases of Type 1, the most common form for young people, went up about 2 per cent every year.
The National Institutes of Health, which funded the study along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the cause of the rise is "unclear."
"These findings lead to many more questions," explained Dr. Barbara Linder, senior advisor for childhood diabetes research at NIH's National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.
"The differences among racial and ethnic groups and between genders raise many questions. We need to understand why the increase in rates of diabetes development varies so greatly and is so concentrated in specific racial and ethnic groups."
The study, published Friday in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed higher rates of diabetes diagnoses among minorities.
Type 2 diabetes, which the CDC stated makes up about 90 per cent to 95 per cent of diagnosed diabetes cases, rose by 8.5 per cent in Asian Americans ages 10-19. Blacks in the same age group saw a 6.3 per cent increase, followed by a 3.1 per cent bump in Hispanics and whites at fewer than a 1 per cent increase.
Hispanics saw the biggest rate increase of Type 1 diabetes with a 4.2 per cent increase, followed by blacks at 2.2 per cent and whites at 1.2 per cent.
In terms of gender, girls and women 10-19 saw a 6.2 per cent increase in Type 2 diabetes, while men and boys of the same age experienced a 3.7 per cent increase. Across all age groups, Type 1 diabetes increased 2.2 per cent in males and 1.4 per cent in females.
CDC epidemiologist Dr Giuseppina Imperatore said those who develop diabetes at a young age are at risk of developing complications from the disease earlier, lowering their quality of life, shortening life expectancy and increasing health care costs.
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