Rapper Davion Blessing, 23, recently had a big breakthrough: he burst onto the scene and gained fans around the world.
But his fans and doctors have expressed concerns about the health of the artist, stage name Dave Blunt, whose weight is estimated at around 500 pounds.
He said he had been drinking lean regularly for the past seven years — an illegal concoction of cough syrup, soda and candy that has a sedative effect.
In addition to medication, he said he “eats everything” and has shared diet attempts online that involve eating only fruit for a month. After eating, he said he often lay down to rest.
This is in addition to the fact that he is not active and said that he currently gets more exercise from walking while traveling than at any other time in his life.
Blessing was recently hospitalized before a concert in Chicago for unexplained reasons, leading him to take action oxygen tank on stage for his performance.
He shared that he had difficulty climbing stairs and had been frequently hospitalized, usually for asthma-related issues, which he suffered from throughout his life.
Dr. Stuart Fischer, internal medicine physician at New York Citytold DailyMail.com that at his size, Blessing could be headed for an early death.
Dr Fischer said: “When someone his age needs oxygen, we know something is wrong. This can’t last forever.
A photo of 500-pound rapper Dave Blunts and his girlfriend has gone viral after the 23-year-old star sparked health fears by performing on stage with an oxygen tank.
Blunts was among the performers in Chicago for the 4th annual JUICE WRLD DAY in memory of the late rapper. But attention quickly turned to his health as he performed seated with the tank and joined by his partner Isabella.
He said Blessing’s weight likely makes it difficult to breathe, both because the extra pounds are compressing his sternum and because abdominal fat can secrete chemicals that cause inflammation in the lungs, making asthma worse. .
Obesity, Dr. Fischer said, is a disease linked to about 60 different medical conditions. This includes heart disease, diabetes, cancer and respiratory problems.
Dr. Fischer said he suspected that because of Blessing’s weight, her insulin levels might be altered. Insulin is a hormone that controls how the body processes and uses sugar and can affect energy. He told this website: “It is automatic diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, as this scenario is strongly linked to insulin resistance. »
Blessing is not alone: About 22 million American adults suffer from severe obesity, and the disease causes about 500,000 deaths a year, according to a Harvard study.
Amid widespread concerns about his health, the Iowa rapper said he’s trying to take steps to lose weight.
He said that although he had always been “on the bigger side”, his diet and exercise habits had added up to contribute to his current weight. He said, “I’m definitely the one doing this to myself.”
“It’s something I struggle with, yes, but I’m working on it, you know what I’m saying.
“I hope after this album comes out you know that I can sign a deal and then I have the money to get a personal trainer, you know what I’m saying, all that shit.
This led to a series of diets. In late September, he announced that he was going to try eating only fruit for a month, with apples and watermelons being among his favorites.
There isn’t one food that Blessing prefers over others, and in a recent interview he said, “I eat everything.”
Dr. Fischer said that the type of food a person eats to gain a lot of weight matters less than how much they eat: “To gain that amount of weight, you have to eat a huge amount of calories every day, the type of food actually. it makes no difference.
Blessing yourself with one of his trademark mugs, which he sells online for $5
In addition to his diet, Blessing almost never appears without a plastic cup labeled with his own personal brand, “Dave Blunts Purple Stuff.”
The cup’s design mimics two stacked Styrofoam cups, in a nod to a popular medicinal preparation called lean.
Lean refers to a combination of cough syrup, soda, and hard candy, traditionally served in a stack of Styrofoam cups. It was popularized in the early 2000s by rappers like little Lil Wayne.
Cough syrup contains codeine and promethazine, two medications that work together to make a person feel sedated.
It is also known as “purple bu”, “bu”, “sizzurp” and “mud”.
Blessing previously told interviewers that he had been sipping it since he was sixteen, on a semi-regular basis.
It’s unclear what exactly Blessing puts in his concoction, but if it’s sprite, which is a popular option, he clocks in around 130 calories and 38 grams of added sugar for each 10-ounce can.
It looks like Blessing’s cup is about 20 ounces – so he could be consuming double that in each serving.
On top of that, if Blessing added six hard candies like Jolly Ranchers to the mix, it would net an additional 35 calories and 6.5 grams of sugar.
Cough syrup itself is also often sweetened and contains on average about 20 calories and 3 grams of sugar per teaspoon. People don’t often measure their syrup before making it, which means there can be a lot of calories and medicine in each serving.
The rapper said on the No Jumper podcast that he also used other drugs like Percocet, Ecstasy and Xanax.
More than his diet, Blessing said on the No Rider podcast that his weight is linked to his activity level: “It’s more like laziness. Like I’m just going to eat and then like relax or sleep or have sex like that.
Blessing said he tries to walk more, but has to stop to take frequent breaks because of his asthma and foot pain.
Blessing shared that he was trying to exercise more, but found it difficult, saying, “Since I like to explode, you know this is the most similar exercise I I’ve done in my fucking life, walking around these fucking airports, man.
When Blessing exercises or walks, he shares that he often feels uncomfortable and has to stop and use his inhaler or sit down.
Dr Fischer said this difficulty was likely multifactorial. For starters, the rapper suffers from asthma, which can be exasperated by the hormones that fat cells in the abdomen secrete, causing asthma.
He said: “Fat secretes inflammatory chemicals that can worsen or even trigger an asthma attack – the weight itself causes breathing difficulties and other conditions like obstructive sleep apnea.”
This is why diseases like Covid, which can cause inflammation of the lungs, are so dangerous for overweight people, because their lungs may already be weakened.
Second, it can be taxing to carry around a lot of fat. Dr. Fischer said the sensation would be like carrying 80-pound dumbbells all day — and could cause pain in your ankles, wrists and spine.
It becomes a viscous cycle, in which an overweight person doesn’t want to move because it’s painful, but the less they move, the harder it is to lose weight.
In order to restore his health, Dr. Fischer said Blessing would need to make serious changes to his diet and exercise routine, and would likely need to take medications to control blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar. .