Ohhh lawd, I was wondering when she'd be mentioned on here, but never thought it'd be in the FB thread, lol..
Ashley is my cousin. Even after going through all of that stuff and being on the show years ago, not much has changed for her. She did try, for a while, to lose weight - and was actually successful to a degree. I believe she got down to around 400lb or so (I remember her starting out at over 700lb) but then gained a lot of it back because her husband is a redneck, loser piece of shit. He never wanted her to lose any weight and better herself and her family, regardless of how it seemed on the show, and he was both verbally, emotionally and physically abusive to her when she was losing. So, she gave up. Not trying to pull a pity party for her, because she isn't exactly an innocent little snowflake herself, but hey. At least one good thing to come from all of it is that the kid has had a surprisingly normal life after the fact. He has grown up a lot and has a lot of friends, interests and hobbies to keep him busy. It's also been years since he's done any laundry for them. I still worry about his well-being and health as he gets older, though. Right now, I mean, he understands that his parents eat a lot. A lot more than any normal person would ever eat. Despite this, he is a normal weight and healthy and regularly says that he never wants to be "big fat" like his parents are. When you're constantly bombarded with parents who enable each other and eat like 6 heaping plates full of food EACH for ONE MEAL multiple times daily, though, it's inevitably going to rub off on you one way or another. I'm not joking about the amount they both eat per meal. This is noticeably reflected in the $5k-$7k that they spend monthly on groceries. It's ridiculous.
