The Boy Who Beat The Bulge

Arya used to be called the world’s fattest boy – but now he’s lost 110kg and is leading a healthy, active life COMPILED BY

- Kim Abrahams

THE teenage boy stands proudly next to a cardboard cutout of himself but it’s hard to believe it’s the same person.

Arya Permana looks nothing like the figure beside him. He’s, in fact, a shadow of his former self – in all the right ways.

The 14-year-old is no longer the morbidly obese, insecure and lonely child he used to be. Arya’s size earned him the title of the world’s fattest child but it’s a label that no longer haunts him.

He’s shed an incredible 110kg over four years and is now a confident kid who enjoys keeping fit by going to the gym and taking part in outdoor activities with his friends.

The Indonesian schoolboy, who now weighs 83kg, has 350 000 Instagram followers who hail him as an inspiration for posting astonishing before-and-after pictures of his body.

The next step in Arya’s transformation is to resume a series of surgeries to remove his excess skin – the legacy of his dramatic weight loss. The first surgery was on his arms.

Folds of saggy skin resembling worn-out leather hang from his body like oversized clothing, his father, Ade Somantri (49), says.

“The skin that hung on his arm was like a sleeve,” he adds.

Arya has so much loose skin to shed that his surgeries will be done in five stages, spaced three to six months apart to give his body time to recover, says Dr Hardisiswo Soedjana.

Having already tackled his arms, surgeons will next move onto his chest, stomach, legs and finally his hips.

Arya had the first of his five procedures in July last year.