'Celebs pushing weight loss ops is dangerous for kids – I lost 14st naturally'

'Celebs pushing weight loss ops is dangerous for kids – I lost 14st naturally',EXCLUSIVE: Essex man Matthew Riggs warned the public not to follow in the footsteps of the likes of James Argent and Neil Ruddock who shrunk their stomachs with gastric sleeve surgeries

‘Celebs pushing weight loss ops is dangerous for kids – I lost 14st naturally’

A dad hit out at celebrities for promoting weight loss surgeries, which he believes are sending the wrong message to children.

Matthew Riggs shed 14st after his son told him he would die – without going under the knife.

He dedicates his transformation to old fashioned hard work and believes it's dangerous for people to consider tummy ops as a quick fix.

READ MORE: 'I was determined to lose weight when son asked if I'd die – and shed 14st'

Former footballer Neil ‘Razor’ Ruddock recently “cheated death” with a gastric sleeve to remove two thirds of his stomach.

And he did so in the same clinic where TOWIE star James Argent got his.

riggs — He used to drink a bottle of rum every single day (Image: Matthew Riggs)

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Matthew and his little boy, Harrison, who is now 10 (Image: Supplied/Matt Riggs)

“All you hear from them is how great it is that they lost the weight or how great it is they haven’t had to put the effort in and it is such a bad portrayal of how it is.

“I have friends who have had this done and you go out for dinner with them and the trouble they have eating a normal meal is insane.”

Matthew is an IT director who ballooned to 27st and 2lbs by gorging on three takeaways and a bottle of rum every day.

Alcohol was his coping mechanism but the brutal reality of his situation struck when his seven-year-old son voiced his fears in 2019.

And he believes children should be educated properly about health transformations.

He said: “My son came to me and said ‘dad you’re going to die’ because he was learning about the body in school.

“Kids are like sponges and they pick up on everything. My son was seven and he could pick up that I was unhealthy.

“If he then sees people on TV who you are meant to look up to and you see they are saying ‘well I have been to Turkey and I had this done and I feel like a new man and I feel brilliant’ they will think that if they do put on weight when they get older they can just have that done.

“It is an issue because they will think you don’t need to put effort in. People losing weight by having gastric bypasses is sending the wrong message to kids.

“You can do it naturally with hard work and I am living proof.”

Matthew had loose skin removed around his tummy after he ditched the bulge by joining a gym and radically changing his diet.

And he said life is now unrecognisable to when he was morbidly obese.

“I don’t even drink at all,” Matthew, who eats porridge for breakfast and turkey meatballs and pasta for lunch, said. “This journey has been massive for me.

“I am so much happier and have more time with my kids and we can do stuff I never used to before.

“I don’t get out of breath and I feel so much more confident in myself.

“I am like a new man but I can still go and have family meals and eat the same food everyone else is eating. Then it is a new day and I go back to my eating plan and I train.

“It is such a better way of doing things. I just think this needs to be pushed that you don’t need these mad operations to live a nice healthy life.

“You can do it in the same amount of time as the operations, you just need to put in a bit of time and effort.”