A Girl that looks like Grandma : Zara Hartshorn

13 year old Zara looks like a grandma because she suffers from lipodystrophy, a disease that causes the supporting fatty tissue under the skin to crumble even while the skin continues to grow, often at an alarming rate. By this disease her childhood has been robbed. Her mom took her out of school because some people laughed at her face and kids call her “grandma,” “monkey” and “baggy face.”

Zara lives with her mom, sister and brothers at home in northern England. Her friends are so supported, they always encourage her.

The Congenital Generalized Lipodistrophy, is extremely rare, only about 2,000 people in the entire world have been diagnosed. This condition is also connected with insulin resistance, diabetes, a high triglyceride level and fatty liver. Zara looked like a grown up by the time she was ten, recent she looks older than many of her peers’ parents.

Zara Hartshorn’s mother Tracey also suffers from this disease, as do two of Zara’s siblings. Zara looks older than her 21-year-old sister Jolene and 16-year-old brother Tommy. Tracey Hartshorn told The Mirror U.K. newspaper that she realized that Zara had disorder when she was barely home from the hospital.

Tracy said that “I have seen it all before with my other children, the loose skin, the hollow face and the wrinkles around her chin, but I never seen a case so harsh on a baby so young – my heart sank. Tracy felt so guilty, because when Zara was a baby I knew the pain she would go through later in life.”

Zara told on NBC news, she tries to put on a brave front, but when she face schoolyard taunts, she finds it hard to even get out of bed four days a week. Zara is only 13 year old but she paid bus rent to adult fare because Bus drivers refuse to believe she is 13. This thing also happens in other place, when she tries to purchase a children’s ticket at a movie theater. There is no cure for lipodystrophy, but cosmetic surgery can help.

Zara Hartshorn video

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