Look at those beautiful freckles
This is also textbook eating disorder behavior. Whether it's binge, restrictive, or a combination of both, eating disorders usually involve ritualizing of food shopping, storage, preparation, and presentation...buying more food than you could or will ever eat...thinking and talking about food even when not actively eating...an obsession with feeding others...a "high" that comes with achieving your food goal (whether it is eating a certain food or restricting to a certain amount) and a comedown when you have to begin the cycle again, etc etc etc.
As you said, for most people I would feel a lot of sympathy...but I have no sympathy for these fools. They are awful people who willfully abuse, neglect, and manipulate vulnerable people or people who approach them with good intentions...all for their own gain. In the eternal words of Ass, they can get bent.