World's 'fattest man' tended by seven carers a day - Telegraph.co.uk

"I am trying to get my weight down. Hopefully it won't be too long."

Mr Martin, of Hendon, north London, said he was able to enjoy a normal life until his mother, Alma, died when he was 16.

His parents had separated when he was small and his father, Henry, a hospital porter, passed away within a couple of years of his mother.

Mr Martin left school with just a few qualifications and worked as a warehouseman and labourer until his weight, and the resultant lack of mobility and breathlessness, made it impossible.

Taunts of "Dumbo" about his size from passersby in his younger days failed to curb his appetite. By 2001 his weight resulted in him being taken to hospital for the first time.

Speaking in his ground floor bedroom in his council house, he said: "Since then the only times I've left home have been in the back of a van to move to this house when we were rehoused or in an ambulance to go to hospital.

"I blame myself, I don't blame anyone else. It was my fault, I am the one who ate the food. No one held a gun to my head and made me. I hate what I have done to myself.

"I let myself go. It wasn't comfort eating, I just didn't care. I got so bloated on sausages, bacon and roast dinners. I just ate whatever I felt like."

Mr Martin, who has outgrown his size 8XL clothes, is 5ft 9in tall but has a 6ft waist. He has also been diagnosed with depression and had heart problems.

When he has to go to hospital, a specialist team which uses a £90,000 adapted ambulance for obese people is needed to move him. Up to eight ambulance officers manoeuvre him from his bed to the ambulance by stretcher or a special bag which can be used to drag him along the floor.

They last went to his aid in the autumn after he fell at home. Since then, Mr Martin has remained in bed and, in between visits from his carers, spends his days watching his 42in plasma television, playing on his games console or reading.

Yesterday Mr Martin added: "I've been told to lose weight or I won't see 50. I've cut down a massive amount on what I used to eat. I'm trying to keep my calorie intake to 2,500 a day [the recommended average for men] – it was at 9,000 calories a day."

Mr Martin is believed to have taken the fattest man title from a 90-stone Mexican called Manuel Uribe, who has gone on a diet and is now 31st 6lb.