A month ago, when Asha Devi, 47, told people she was a stay-at-home mum, she meant it literally. The mother of four barely stepped out of home for years because her excess weight made it impossible for her to go up and down three flights to her third-floor apartment in the northwest Delhi neighbourhood of Rani Bagh. “The building doesn’t have a lift so I only stepped out of home when I absolutely had to, maybe two or three times a month,” said Devi, who stands 157 cm high and weighed 114 kg a month ago. Six months ago, it got so bad that walking from one room to another left her breathless.
“My blood pressure was sky high, I feared I had developed heart disease,” she said. Her heart was fine. What Devi had was obesity hypoventilation syndrome (OHS), an obesity-related condition in which fat tissue restricts the normal movement of the chest and respiratory muscles, making oxygen levels…
