Meet the Chawners

19 stone Emma is 19 years old. She shot to infamy after she first appeared on The X Factor in 2006.

Wearing a dress she made with Dad Phil, Emma sang Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On”. The judges said “no”, Simon Cowell told her she sang a bit like a baby and that she looked like she was gong to a wedding.

After her appearance Emma and the family were called “Tellytubbies”, “Flumps” and “Lardbuckets” in the national press. Writing in The Sun Kelvin McKenzie said:

“The Chawner family…area disgrace to themselves and to the nation.”

“…if we cut off their income support, they would starve, which would be good for them and us.”

Emma even received death threats on forums like Facebook.

Undaunted Emma has since appeared in the audition stages of The X Factor three times, and on the most recent series appeared as “Sister Act” with her big sister Sam. She has, however never got beyond these first stages.

Emma’s an asthmatic and a smoker who’s been dreaming of becoming a professional singer since she was a young girl and has won trophies in talent shows she entered whilst on holiday.

Emma wants to slim down from 19 stone to 9 or 10 and lose 8 dress sizes.
 

21 year old Sam weighs almost 27 stone. She wants to slim down to 9 or 10 stone and lose 10 dress sizes.

Sam’s the organiser for the household. She looks after everyone and makes sure they get to their doctors appointments on time.

She cares hugely about her family and has sworn to look after her Mum and Dad just as they did for her when she was a baby.

Sam also loves the family Yorkshire terrier Jenny and is proud of the tricks she’s taught her.

Ultimately Sam wants to be a hairdresser but isn’t working at the moment.
 

Audrey is 57 and weighs 22 stone. She’s only 60 inches tall and has a 60 inch waist so she’s as tall as she is round. She’s so overweight that the only way she can get up the stairs is to crawl and once she’s there she needs her asthma inhaler to recover.

Audrey’s daily routine is ruled by the TV schedules but she often struggles to stay awake long enough to watch as many programmes as she’d like.

When she was younger Audrey loved looking after and riding horses. However she banged her head during a nasty fall and was left with epilepsy for which she is on medication.

Despite this Audrey wants to slim down to 10 or 11 stone, lose 6 dress sizes and even get back on one of her beloved horses!

Phil is fifty four, he’s 5ft 8 and weighs a massive 24 stone.

Phil used to be a lorry driver but put on so much weight that he developed Type Two diabetes. This wasn’t diagnosed until Phil nearly fell asleep at the wheel of his lorry on the motorway 12 years ago. He hasn’t worked since.

As well as diabetes Phil has also been diagnosed with an irregular heart beat.
The left side of his heart isn’t working properly and Doctors have given Phil the shocking news that if he doesn’t loose weight he may only have a few years left to live.

Phil wants to get down from 24 stone to 11 or 12 and be able to buy clothes from the shops and not a catalogue. He would love to get fit and healthy as he wants to be around to see his girls get married and have a families of their own.