Before he was fitness icon Richard Simmons, he was born Milton Teagle Simmons in New Orleans. Growing up in the Big Easy’s historic French Quarter, Simmons was surrounded by some of the finest, richest, and fattiest food in the world. Not surprisingly, the youngster loved to eat. “I came out of my mother’s womb with a fork,” he joked during an appearance on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”
That love of food resulted in obesity. He weighed 200 pounds in middle school and hovered near 270 at his high school graduation. He was targeted by bullies — which only exacerbated the situation when he tried to dull the pain by finding comfort in food. This, he wrote in his autobiography, “Still Hungry — After All These Years” (via the Chicago Tribune), was how humor became his suit of armor. “In high school, I could get beaten up all the time, or I could be something better. I became the court jester,” he explained.
Desperate to lose weight, he went on a diet so restrictive that he developed an eating disorder. At one point, his weight dropped to a dangerously low 119 pounds, losing all his hair (his iconic curly ‘do is the result of painful hair transplants). Coming to realize that he’d swapped compulsive eating with compulsive dieting, Simmons knew he wouldn’t live long unless he changed his approach to one that embraced regular exercise and a sensible diet.
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