"I can't afford to eat healty"

'I can't afford to eat healthily' says £600-a-month benefits woman who weighs 22 stone



Laura Ripley receives £600 a month in benefits, weighs 22 stone after a gastric sleeve operation, and is deemed fit to work but has no plans to find a job

Laura Ripley receives £600 a month in benefits, weighs 22 stone after a gastric sleeve operation, and is deemed fit to work but has no plans to find a job

A 25-year-old unemployed woman who was given an £8,000 operation to help her lose 16 stone is complaining because, as well as her weight loss, her benefits have been reduced.

Laura Ripley, who has never worked, was given the operation on the NHS to help her slim down from 38 to 22 stone.

But the 25-year-old, who receives £600 a month in benefits, is unhappy because as a result of losing weight she can no longer claim disability allowance amounting to an extra £340 a month.

This, she says, means she cannot afford to eat healthily - causing her to pile the weight back on.

'I can't afford to buy WeightWatchers crisps and cereal bars any more so I eat Tesco's chocolate bars and packets of Space Invaders crisps, sometimes four of each a day', says Laura, who spends seven hours a day watching TV.

'People ask why I don't snack on an apple - they're cheap, but emotionally I don't always feel like an apple.'

The disability allowance money she used to receive was spent on gym workouts, healthy food and having her hair highlighted.

She adds: 'Without my disability allowance I'm left with just £210 incapacity benefit which I get because of my depression, and £100 income support I receive every two weeks and out of that I have to give them back £70 towards the cost of the £500-a-month flat I'm living in.'

Since the extra allowance stopped Laura has put on a stone in just three weeks and claims she is being treated unfairly.


'It's heartbreaking that after all my hard work losing this weight someone's come along and ruined it.'

Laura has been offered another operation on the NHS, which would normally cost £12,000, to remove the saggy skin left behind after the dramatic weight loss, but only if she sheds a further five stone, and until then she has no plans to find a job.
Laura Ripley

Morbidly obese: Laura, then aged 15 and weighing 25 stone, snacks on crisps and chocolate because she says she cannot afford healthy food
Closer magazine

'I'm not even applying for work at the moment because I'm only going to have to have lots of time off when I have more surgery.'

Speaking from the two-bedroom flat she shares with unemployed boyfriend Simon Hawkins, Laura describes how she was shocked into embarking on the weight loss plan after her mother Doreen died of obesity-related complications on Christmas Eve 2005.

'A doctor told me that unless I lost 20 stone I wouldn't live to see my 25th birthday. He recommended I have a gastric sleeve op.'

Prior to the surgery Laura lost eight and a half stone by cutting out junk food and drinking diet shakes and has since lost a further seven stone after her stomach was shrunk by 75 per cent.

However, without the extra benefits Laura is worried she'll put the weight back on and says she can feel her stomach stretching after binging on the unhealthy snacks.

'I sometimes feel guilty about all the taxpayers' money that's been spent on me but I only want an extra £100 a month, that's all', says Laura.