If you haven’t seen “My 600-Pound Life,” you’re missing out. Each episode follows a morbidly obese individual. It shows their daily life. A lot of them are literally bedridden. Often their kids must do absolutely everything for them: bathing, shopping, and cooking.

They have family members get them fast food, sometimes five times a day. One woman actually had a fryer on her nightstand. No joke! What gets me is they actually wonder why they can’t lose weight. I wonder.

Yes, that is a Fry Baby deep fryer. On. Her. Bed. Courtesy cdn.inquisitr.com

Anyway, they either move or take a sometimes six-month (sometimes longer) trip to Houston. There they meet a doctor that operates on people their size (I think the heaviest person I have seen was approaching (if not already there) 1,000 pounds. The doctor takes no excuses. He gives them a meal plan and says he will only do gastric bypass if they lose fifty pounds on their own. A lot of the people aren’t serious and are just looking for a quick fix.

If he does approve their surgery, their lives have the potential to change dramatically. Some people change nothing about their behavior and get heavier than they were before, but lots keep it off and are so much happier.

Overall my takeaway of the show is this: no excuses. You get out of the doctor’s instructions what you put into them. Which is pretty much like life in general, so, technically, the show is more than junk food for the mind. It’s taking one situation—a situation most of us will never, ever experience, let alone understand—and, if you allow it, showing how (1) these people really aren’t different from you and me, and (2) the only one responsible for your success—or failure—is you.

Mom and I are hooked. Dad gives us grief, but it is on The Learning Channel, after all.