OLD BRIDGE — A mother of two from Old Bridge became a tabloid phenomenon last year after saying she was proud of her 600-pound physique, and wouldn't mind getting bigger.

Donna Simpson capitalized on the notoriety that followed, as her internet modeling career took off and traffic increased on her website, where voyeurs could watch her eat on camera for $19 a month.

Simpson’s size made her famous, but these days she is curbing the behavior that put her in the spotlight.

She has dropped 80 pounds over the past six months and shut down her webcam.

"The bottom line is that it was a fantasy created for men," says Simpson. "Men wanted me to be their fantasy, regardless of my quality of life."

Simpson was engaged for five years to a 51-year-old businessman who declined to comment for this article. They have a 4-year-old daughter.

"(He) bathed me and took care of me," says Simpson, 44, via phone from her hometown of Akron, Ohio. She moved back in with family after the break-up. "He knew that all I could do was sit at home. Some men, their fantasy is to have you bed-bound. They don’t just want a big girl. They want to have you locked at their house. It’s about control."

Simpson and her former fiancé met online in a chat room for "fat admirers."

"There’s tons of websites for men who love big women," says Simpson, a former caregiver at an Ohio psychiatric clinic who has a 14-year-old son from a previous relationship.

"For us women that tend to be overweight, we’ve been told by society that we’re horrible, that we’ll never get a mate and we’ll never have children and we’ll never be happy," she continues. "It’s kind of natural that you find this other society where you’re accepted."

Simpson says her ex-fiancé encouraged her to eat large meals as a fetish. Food and sex commingle in a practice called "feederism."

"The feeder fetish is unique because it concerns not an object or a body part but an actual behavior," says Rutgers sociology professor Luis T. Garcia. "People associate feeding with arousal."

Feederism can intensify into a form of bondage when weight gain becomes so excessive that it impacts mobility, Garcia says.

"If someone is coerced into destructive behavior to stay in a relationship, that’s a problem," says Garcia. "You see the same kind of thing in people who practice sadomasochism. It can be very mild like tying up their partner or it can involve activities that are dangerous."

Simpson says her health has improved since she left New Jersey, but she still uses a wheelchair or a motorized cart to get around. She cannot stand up for longer than five minutes without feeling sick.

"I like being heavy, but it’s not a normal state for me to be as big as I am now," says Simpson, who is currently 515 pounds at 5-foot-2. "My weight loss is not about trying to fit into a size 4. It’s about trying to get into the bathtub so I can bathe myself. I want to have more energy and be able to go to the park and push my daughter on the swing."

Simpson doesn’t envision herself weighing less than 300 pounds. Her plan is to find a counseling program where she can address the issues that trigger her compulsions. In the meantime, she is moderating her eating habits and joining a YMCA, where she can walk in the pool for a low-impact workout.

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"This one man used to give me $200 a week to buy groceries," says Simpson. "He spent thousands of dollars to get me bigger. He probably thinks he wasted money, but it’s like, ‘I’m sorry guys. I can’t be your fantasy anymore.’ "

Simpson was a binge eater long before she discovered the feeder subculture.

"My mother was born during the Great Depression and she starved as a little kid," says Simpson. "She resolved that when she had children, she would never let them go hungry. She encouraged me and my brothers to eat as much as we wanted, as long as we were full and satisfied. She kind of overcompensated."

Simpson was 9 when her mother passed away and her father later remarried.

"My stepmother threw all the food out," says Simpson. "She locked up the cupboards. I was on diet pills just to get down to 160 pounds. I was still a size 18. I still got ridiculed at school because you’re not allowed to be fat in high school."

Compulsive eating is common among obese individuals but it is usually a hidden behavior, says Robin Schroeder, a bariatric specialist at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

"People are often embarrassed about it," says Schroeder. "They don’t talk about it or advertise it. And most people who are obese are not happy about it. They’d do just about anything to change it."

Simpson says many of her supporters are women who appreciate her message of plus-sized female empowerment.

"It’s sad that size 14 is considered horrible," says Simpson, who receives fan mail as well as death threats. "It’s wrong to modify your body for men, but every woman in the world seems to do it. Women want to be super thin with big boobs. They get collagen injections and plastic surgery and rack their brains trying to lose 20 pounds. On the holidays, it’s time to eat, time to have fun, time to relax and then it’s like, ‘Gotta start the diet Jan. 1.’ It’s funny how people feel so guilty for eating."