WEIGHT-LOSS MARVEL ROBERSON, 50, DIES.

Byline: Staff and Wire Services

LANCASTER - Joy Roberson, who made four appearances on Oprah Winfrey's show and dedicated herself to helping others overcome morbid obesity after losing more than 600 pounds, has died at age 50.

Roberson, a Lancaster resident, died Dec. 11 after suffering from uterine cancer.

Roberson once weighed 900 pounds and had to be hospitalized because her lungs could no longer supply oxygen to her body.

``I'd eat because I was depressed and was depressed because I was fat,'' she once said. ``I earned every pound I carried. Most people have a time separation between meals, but I ate all day long.''

Roberson's weight became a health problem after high school, when she got an office job and for eight hours every day sat in a chair. When she went home she couldn't differentiate between being mentally tired and physically tired - so she sat some more.

This went on for almost 10 years. Her weight increased to more than 600 pounds and she had trouble getting behind the wheel of her car. Just walking from her car to the elevator at work left her breathless.

Eventually she lost her job, then stopped leaving the house.

``It was so humiliating,'' she recalled. ``No one was going to hire me.''

After she had trouble breathing and was taken to Los Angeles County/USC Medical Center in a U-Haul truck, she was placed in a special oversize bed. Roberson told friends that she realized she needed to lose weight after hearing doctors indicate there was little they could do to help her.

She began exercising by pulling herself up by a bar hanging over her hospital bed. After returning home, she paced around her mother's porch and took strolls through a local park.

In 18 months, she trimmed down to 720 pounds.

She later joined the Lancaster 24-Hour Fitness gym and began working with a professional trainer, dropping 200 pounds in a year through a regimen of walking, swimming and other exercises.

``She called me Dr. Death and Dr. Pain,'' said her trainer, Cecil Pullum. ``But as much as she complained and whined, she was there every day, ready to sweat.''

After slimming down, she and her trainer held workshops and seminars to help others struggling with morbid obesity. She started an organization, Life's Forgotten Angels, and appeared on Oprah Winfrey's talk show.

``If I can do it, so can others,'' Roberson said. ``I can give them hope and encouragement, but the bottom line is that it's their choice whether to fight and live.''

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Joy Roberson of Lancaster lost more than 600 pounds and inspired others.