International   

American fat man stumbles home

Suzanne Goldenberg

Washington: He braved rattlesnakes in the desert, and creepy hotel clerks in the Midwest. His wife left him, and he has stress fractures in both feet. But for Steve Vaught, a morbidly obese man who set out to walk across America to lose weight and find his soul, journey's end was in sight.

At 6pm on Tuesday, 48kg lighter and with nearly 5,000 km behind him, Mr. Vaught is expected to cross the George Washington bridge into New York City. He is not as trim as he thought he would be when he set off from his home in California more than a year ago, and he still has no solid answers on how to beat his addiction to food.

But Mr. Vaught was in good humour as he set out from Parsippany, New Jersey, to conquer the last 45km between him and Manhattan. ``There are no sidewalks in New Jersey — well, maybe there are two. It's a crazy place,'' he said. ``I am actually walking in the roadway a lot of the time. Wouldn't that be ironic to get all the way to New Jersey and get run over?''

But it would not be entirely out of keeping for an odyssey that has resolutely resisted conforming to America's tidy notions of redemption. Mr. Vaught is undeniably fitter than the 186kg man who set off from San Diego in April last year and, after tossing his depression medication into the desert, says he is a lot happier. He has acquired a cult following in the U.S. and on the net, where imitators are planning cross-country walks of their own, and he is booked for appearances on breakfast TV.

Otherwise the journey has been a lot rockier than he could have imagined. His wife, April, filed for divorce last month. Within the past few weeks, he regained 9 kg. The book deal, which was to have been the big prize at the end of his walk, has run into trouble over editing. —

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Putin calls for strong army
Israeli threat to Hamas on borders
India invited to Sri Lanka donors meet
Dictatorship of rumour: Chirac
Cannibal jailed for life
Call to fight alcoholism
Suharto may get amnesty
Teen's murder "sectarian"
Musharraf rules out polls before 2008
American fat man stumbles home
Napolitano elected President
Summons issued to Benazir, Asif Zardari

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu