Ex Worlds' Fattest Man Sues British Health Care System

Paul Mason, formerly the “Worlds Fattest Man" who at once tipped the scales at 1,000 pounds, is blaming Britain's National Health System (NHS) for sending him off to dietitians who merely told him to lose weight -- but failed to identify his problem as an eating disorder.

The former British postal worker stated that when he went to the NHS for help with his eating in a 1996, he was told to "ride your bike more."

Years later, after weighing in at 900 pounds -- and scarfing down over 20,000 calories a day -- he was finally given life-saving gastric surgery. Mason, 50, cost the British taxpayers more than $3,000 a week before getting the surgery. The estimate didn't include the cost of firefighters knocking down the front of his home, so they could get a forklift inside to get him out for hernia surgery in 2002 or his $50,000 gastric surgery in 2009.

Now weighing 518 pounds, Mason wants to take his case to court and said, "I want to set a precedent so no one else has to get to the same size - and to put something back into society."

The NHS refused to comment, saying it had not been officially notified of the suit.