'World's fattest kid' saved by emergency surgery

JAKARTA - An Indonesian boy branded the world's fattest child has lost a sixth of his weight in a month, after undergoing emergency surgery that is believed to have saved his life.

Eleven-year-old Arya Permana weighed 192kg going into the five-hour gastric sleeve surgery - and in just four weeks he has already lost 31kg.

Surgeons who completed the operation on Arya, who is the youngest person in history to undertake the medical procedure, say he is likely to lose a further 100kg within the next year. That would bring him down to 61kg, a slightly above normal weight for a 12-year-old boy.

Before the operation, Arya was eating five large meals a day, and weighed six times a normal boy his age - but now he feels fuller for longer, and eats less of the icecream, salted anchovies and hard-boiled eggs he loved pre-surgery.

His father Ade Soemantri said Arya "had no sense of being full" before the operation, in a new documentary coming out about his son's extraordinary battle with his weight.

"Every time he had two packets of noodles and two eggs," he explained.

His mother Rokayah blamed herself for Arya's weight gain, saying she failed to control how much she fed him because of her love for him.

Arya rose to fame after collapsing at his school's flag ceremony, with world media brandishing him with the title of world's fattest child.

"More than half a kilo of chicken and then there was rice. This could be four to six times a day." "The saddest thing was watching Arya try to get up. He would get out of breath just walking five metres - we were very worried."

But they still continued to feed their son greasy curries and high-cholesterol snacks, such as salted anchovies and hard-boiled eggs.

It was only when their son's health reached a near critical condition that his parents accepted their son needed urgent help.

Mr Soemantri, a 45-year-old who worked as a security guard, said Arya 'had no sense of being full' in a new Channel 5 documentary on his son's story.