World’s Thinnest And Bravest Person? Meet Girl, 24, Who Weighs 27 kg, Has To Eat Every 20 Minutes (PHOTOS)

United States – At just 5ft 2″ (1.58m) tall and
weighing a little over 27 kg, Lizzie
Velasquez, 24, appears worryingly thin at
first glance. But her tiny frame wasn't caused
by an eating disorder. Instead, it is the result
of a syndrome so rare that it is shared by
very few other people in the world.
Her condition
means that try
as she might, Lizzie, from Austin in Texas, finds it
impossible togain weight or store fat, and as a
result, she's forced to eat up to 60 small meals a
day.
Despite the challenges, the courageous 24-year-old
insists she wouldn't change a thing about herself
and, instead, throws herself into her work as
a motivational speaker and anti-bullying
campaigner.
"I would never, ever change my appearance, even
if I could," she says. "It's taken me so many years
to accept who I am and like the person that I see in
the mirror so I would never change it just to "fit
in"."But despite her bravery, the condition, which is yet
to be fully diagnosed and named, casts a shadow
over her life, not least because most of the people
who suffer from the syndrome die in childhood.
Her doctor says: "Lizzie is one of the very few
people in the world to have this
condition. Sufferers have very little muscle mass,
their limbs look very thin, spindly, and many of
these people, they die very early in life. Other
children with this have had very different
experiences. Lizzie is 24 right now so she has
beaten these odds."
Because of the illness, Lizzie has already lost the
sight in her right eye and has limited use of the
other. Nevertheless, she has refused to allow that
to stop her and has penned two best-selling books,
and works as a motivational speaker doing up to
200 talks a year.
"My parents raised me to be completely normal.
They never told me I was different," she narrates.
"The only thing is that I was smaller than the other
kids but I was just like them. As I got older, I
became more aware of why people were staring at
me and I started getting really angry."I hated the fact that none of these kids wanted to
get to know me. In my mind, I'm just like them and
I would never tell my parents I was being bullied so
my way of coping with it is when I would take a
bath and nobody was in the room with me, and
that's when I would cry."
Once, she saw a photo of herself on the Internet
with a caption 'The Ugliest Woman In The World'.
"I felt like somebody was putting their hand
through the computer screen and punching me
over and over," she says. "There were thousands
and thousands of comments. The first one said: "I
just threw up over my keyboard. You're gross." The
second, "eww, kill it with fire, now". Others asked
why my parents didn't abort me because I'm so
ugly. Can you imagine that?"
Despite the vile comments, Lizzie says she has no
fear of bullies anymore and if she were to meet one
in future, her response would be: 'I won'.
For now, she's concentrating on the future and the
anti-bullying charity she hopes to set up.
"My dreams for the future are continuing to help
others," she explains. "I want to create an anti-
bulling company. Something for kids and adults
and teenagers who are struggling and so far, my
dreams have come true."