Actress aids eating illness victims

Laetitia has lost two stone in less than four weeks

The Inside Out documentary team spend time with an actress whose mission is helping people with a life-threatening eating disorder.

Actress Colette Brown has taken on the challenge of the severe eating disorder Prader-Willi syndrome and is fighting to help people with the condition.

The Holby City star's 27-year-old sister Laetitia suffers from the genetic condition that drives people to eat constantly.

Tony Holland, a psychiatrist at Cambridge, says: "These people appear to have an insatiable appetite and can die from overeating."

Laetitia, who has lost two stone in the last four weeks at Bretton Homes in Kettering, Northamptonshire, did not discover she had the disorder for almost 20 years.

Colette helps people with the condition

Her mother Pauline says: "Her obesity started at about six years old, when we went to friends, she would go into the cupboard to take some biscuits and things like that.

"It has been a total nightmare, trying to put her on diets."

Colette says: "Laetitia decided to go into care after 27 years at home because she was at a crisis point.

"She weighed more than 26 stone."

The challenge at Bretton Homes is to stick to a strict diet so the pounds will start to fall away.

Constant hunger

Karina Carwell, who works at the home, says the kitchen is locked except when they are preparing food with an average content of 1,200 calories a day.

Mr Holland says if someone with the syndrome is left to eat all they like, they would die.

Laetitia says: "I am desperate to lose weight.

"When I first went to the gym I cried because it was very difficult.

"If I lose weight I will we able to do more and travel and go on planes."

Colette is the patron of the Prader-Willi Syndrome Association, which was founded in Derby 21 years ago.

Inside Out is on BBC One at 1930 BST on Mondays.