California Girl, 9, Loses 66 Pounds After School Bullying Over Weight

Breanna Bond, a California girl who struggled with obesity since very early childhood, said she lost 66 pounds in less than a year after enduring school bullying. Breanna said she began her dramatic weight loss transformation after reaching 186 pounds on her ninth birthday.

"Kids teased me," Breanna said. “Everybody at school would call me names. They would call me fatty, they would call me fat head... They called me chubby and fatty-o."

But the bullying wasn’t only hard on Breanna. Her mother, Heidi Bond, struggled with how to help her daughter, who was routinely ostracized and had trouble keeping up with her friends. When testing ruled out diabetes or hypothyroidism, Bond knew she needed a new game plan.

“Her pediatrician always said that she’d grow into her body and then, after a while, we went and got other doctors’ opinions,” Bond told the hosts of “Good Morning America.” “We had her tested for everything from thyroid to diabetes – her endocrinology got tested – allergies, and everything came out fine so we knew at that point we had to step things up.”

Heidi, and Breanna’s father Dan, decided to create an exercise plan for the whole family to participate in, and began implementing four-mile daily walks on a trail near their home.

“There was nothing that stopped us,” said Heidi. “We went at night, in the rain, in the hail, in the fog, nothing. We had a zero-tolerance policy. We’re doing the walk, no matter what.”

Breanna also began walking on a treadmill at home for 75 minutes a day, and eating a more restrictive diet that only permitted 20 grams of fat a day.

After losing a total of 66 lbs, Breanna says she is thrilled with the results. Her favorite aspects of the transformation are, “[That] I can be involved in sports and I can keep up with my friends when we’re playing,” she told “Good Morning America,” and, “I can just move more.”

“She is an inspiration to the world and all children who are having weight issues across America, that you can do it with a pair of tennis shoes and motivation,” said Heidi. When asked what dieting tips they recommended to parents, the Bonds suggested starting early, and enforcing exercise and healthy eating.

“Don’t be afraid to do the tough love,” said Dan Bond. “It’s worth it in the long run. It’s their life that’s at stake.”