How can we convince this guy that he HAS to lose the weight?

I have a friend who confides in me often. She met a guy at the beginning of the year, and fell head over heels….for the first 5 months.

He’s a nice guy, with some great potential (he’s a graphics arts major, has won several scholarships so far, and has be assured of a position with Coca Cola in their advertising department upon graduation) but he is SO big it’s creating problems in the relationship. He’s about 6’ and pushing 400 pounds and growing. He’s gained 60 pounds since they met. I kind of saw problems from the beginning, but my friend is a bit over weight herself so I thought they could look past that. However, his weight prevents him from doing very much.

She has two toddlers, who he adores, and they love him, but mostly he tries to control them from where he is sitting. For example, one of them was beating on Mom’s bathroom door, yelling for her as she was trying to take a shower, and he was sitting in a chair in the living room calling for the little one to come to him, because it was too much trouble to get up and physically get her. Mom had to throw on a bathrobe, come out, take the baby to him, then go back and take her shower.

They went on an outing on Sunday which required quite a bit of walking. He sat down every chance he got and interacted with the kids very little. Mom was the one who pushed them on the swings and took them down the slides and ran the merry go round. Today he is complaining that his knees hurt.

The other day my friend cleaned their apartment, from top to bottom. He just sat in a chair and played computer games. She was sooooo frustrated.

He does love the kids like his own, but she’s afraid he won’t live to see them graduate from high school, college, get married, become a grand father.

Their intimate life is non existent because of the restrictions he’s put upon himself. No room for creativity or fun in the bed room.

He has medical problems because of his weight.

My friend said that he told her he is perfectly comfortable with his weight, although he admits that it’s bad when he can’t keep up with the kids, can’t chase them to catch them.

My friend said it’s like dealing with a drug addict in denial.

How in the world can we convince him how bad this is, for himself, his kids, his relationship? What can we do or say to get him to try to lose weight, or consent to weight loss surgery, or something?