Concerns are being raised after Britain's heaviest woman died in hospital amid claims she 'fed herself to death'.

Self confessed junk food addict Sharon Mevsimler, aged 40, died weighing a staggering 285kg in her specially strengthened hospital bed of a heart attack.

Ms Mevsimler ballooned from her previously healthy weight in her mid-20's after a bout of post-natal depression

She had previously undergone gastric bypass surgery to try to get her weight in check, and had become somewhat notorious in the UK for her outspoken views of the health system’s treatment of obese people.

'I have been left to die. If I was anorexic I would get proper help but no one has sympathy for obese people', she told The Sun newspaper earlier this year.

But it is her family who are now shouldering some of the blame for her descent into morbid obesity.

Witnesses from the hospital to which Sharon was confined say her family routinely smuggled deep fried take-away meals to her, to placate her addiction to fatty foods.

A hospital worker reportedly told The Sun, 'Those who came to visit her in hospital did her no favours.'

'We saw them bringing in various fatty foods like fish and chips and huge portions of fried chicken when she should not have been eating these things. It was infuriating to see her literally eating herself to death.'

Psychologist Jo Lamble told Sunrise this morning that food addiction is as real as an addiction to drugs or alcohol.

'It's a vicious cycle, just like any addiction', she said, 'They feel guilty, depressed, more out of control, so they eat to self-medicate'.

Ms Lamble also explained the difficulties faced by the partner's of addicts, 'she probably would have been in hospital begging them... maybe getting very angry, getting very abusive'. When you love somebody, it's hard to see them suffering.'