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Talk show host angers woman
By COLLEEN JENKINS
© St. Petersburg Times, A Holiday woman recently got her crack at the world of talk shows, and it wasn't all she thought it would be. On Monday morning, Marie Wheeler described her lifelong battle with obesity for the national audience of the syndicated Sally Jessy Raphael show. The 30-year-old single mother taped the show in New York City back in May, expecting to meet Richard Simmons and to hear encouraging words from Raphael, she said. But Simmons was nowhere to be found, and the show's host dished out insults instead. Wheeler said Raphael gave her the cold shoulder before taping began, barely acknowledging her presence. Things got worse with the cameras rolling. The segment began with a tape filmed by the show's crew at Wheeler's home in Holiday. The tape chronicled her fight with weight. "So you were a fat child, and now you are a fat adult," Raphael said when the tape ended. "And I am going to use the word fat." Wheeler was stunned. "I didn't know what to say," she said on Friday afternoon. "I thought, "And I'm going to use the word rude." At the end of the show, titled "Sally, Can You Help Me?" Raphael referred to Wheeler as the 400-pound woman. Wheeler said she only was about 370 pounds at the time. "I'm embarrassed," Wheeler said. "I was humiliated by the way she treated me." Jim Kelly, director of media relations with the show, said Wheeler never let on that she was unhappy with the taping. He said Raphael treated Wheeler as she would any other guest. "(Raphael) doesn't sugarcoat it," he said Monday. "She's pretty open. She tells it like it is but not in a cruel way. It certainly wasn't a hostile environment. Wheeler said her biggest disappointment was that fitness guru Simmons didn't appear on the show because of producing decisions. The show instead set her up with the LA Weight Loss Center and will foot her bill there for one year. For that, Wheeler was grateful, she said. But the gift doesn't cover the foods required by the program's strict diet, so Wheeler had to drop out of it about two weeks ago. She is currently unemployed and waiting for food stamps to boost her budget enough for the fresh produce and lean meats. She also doesn't have a reliable car to get her to the program's nearest center in Clearwater, where she is required to weigh in three times a week. Wheeler lost six pounds during her first two weeks on the diet. Though she has tried more than 20 diets to no avail, she believes this one could work. She needs it to, she said, for the sake of her 9-year-old son, Mark, a fourth-grader at Anclote Elementary School. "If I don't do something about my weight now, I'm afraid I won't be there to see him graduate from high school, to see him get married and have kids," she said. "I want to be there for him. I know this isn't healthy." The Sally Jessy Raphael Show may not have fulfilled Wheeler's hopes, but she said she now is finding motivation in her faith and friends. She is getting back into low-impact aerobics with the aid of fitness tapes by Susan Powter and Simmons' Sweatin' to the Oldies. And when she finds a job as a fingernail technician -- she earned her license in March -- she plans to gear enough funds toward getting to her target weight of 140 pounds. On the LA Weight Loss plan, that should take 117 weeks. Then, Wheeler said, she might make a second go at the talk show circuit, but maybe with Montel Williams this time. "I want to tell all those women out there that are struggling not to give up," she said, her voice cracking. "If you fall, dust yourself off and get back on the road again. As for her experience with Raphael, Wheeler said, "I don't care what anyone else thinks, because I'm doing this for myself." - Colleen Jenkins can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6232 or toll free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6232.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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From today's Pasco Times Jan Glidewell |
