164Kgs to 112Kgs: Willis Raburu on weight loss, death scare and how celebrity status helped him fight body shaming
By the time Willis Raburu was in class eight, he weighed 100 kilograms and had the nickname ‘Hippo’.
“Students can be nasty. My classmates used to call me ‘hippo’ because I was fat. They made fun of the way I walked, you know when you are overweight you tend to walk a certain way.” The media personality recounts his journey to gain weight.
By May 2022, when he decided to undergo bariatric surgery, Raburu, who currently weighs 112 kilos, was at his heaviest at 164 kilos.
Bariatric surgery is a minimally invasive surgical procedure that helps people lose weight by changing the way the stomach and intestines process ingested food.
“After the surgery, I had complications not because of the surgery, but because of underlying problems. I had high blood pressure and high cholesterol. My oxygen (level) was low and doctors had to put me on an oxygen mask. My heart was also giving way and the doctors had to use a defibrillator. From the tests, the cardiologist told me that the blood vessels around my heart were thinning so my heart was having problems pumping blood and that was potentially dangerous (could lead to death). The doctors went on to say that they were not sure if I would have made it because of the (high) cholesterol and blood pressure levels,” Raburu recounts.
The doctors also noted that other external factors had caused the Wabebe Experience curator to develop the underlying problems.
“I had the surgery sometime in May 2022, and what the doctors told me is that these underlying issues had been with me for about a year and a half to two years, but I hadn’t realized it. And if you look back from 2020, that’s when I went through my divorce. It’s also when I lost a child. And for me, when I’m stressed, I stress eat and I don’t want anything else. That’s how I deal with stress. Willis adds.
Before the surgery, Raburu had tried to deal with the weight gain through exercise and dieting, but that proved to be a futile endeavor.
“The reason I had the surgery is that even if I lost weight by exercising if I took a break from exercising, I would gain it back. Even if it’s a two-week break, I would gain nine kilos back.” Raburu continues.
Having experienced fat shaming as a young boy, Raburu says it didn’t bother him much as an adult when the trolls kept coming.
“People would call me kanono, others would say un-fat and things like that. Those trolls did bother me to some extent because I had been going through that since I was in school. But again, to be honest, being on TV, and being a celebrity helped because now the public looks at you differently. It’s like they look at you with a mask on because you’re a celebrity. They don’t see you as overweight, they see you as a celebrity.” Says Willis, who has had to change his wardrobe four times since the surgery.