This eight-month baby weighs 17kg and has doctors worried sick

Chahat currently weighs same as an average four-year-old should

In a small town in Punjab, India - doctors are concerned about an eight-month-old weighing about 17 kilo grams.

Born in late 2016 to Reena Kumar, Chahat was a seemingly average child during the initial four months of her life. It was only after she was four that Chahat's appetite grew and with it her weight. She currently weighs the same as an average four-year-old should.

“She was born a normal child and only started gaining weight at the age of four months," said Reena.



Apprehensive about her sudden increase in weight that was causing health problems including breathing and sleep troubles, Chahat's parents reached out for medical help but were disappointed when the doctors could not manage to take out blood sample for tests due to heavy mass surrounding her veins.

“When we took her to the doctor, he told us that they would first need to collect blood samples to start with any kind of treatment but it turned out to be difficult as her skin is abnormally hard,” explains her father, Suraj Kumar.

“She gets hungrier than other children her age and demands milk and food often," he said.



Her physician since birth, Dr Vasudev Sharma 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.”

Obesity in India is not unheard of, the Global Burden of Disease Study of 2013 puts India just behind China and the US with nearly 30 million obese people and about 20 per cent of school-going children struggling with weight issue.

Another local study by Post-graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research and Punjab government hospitals found 40 per cent of the entire of Punjab to be obese or over-weight.

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This article originally appeared on the Indian Express.