I haven't seen either of these shows, but, how sad.
In the man's case, it sounds like he couldn't put down the snack foods, and his wife was more than happy to keep providing them to him. Both the man and his wife are at fault here - him for continuing to eat junk food, and her for providing it.
This reminds me of a story that my mother, a doctor, told me. Some years ago, she treated a woman who weighed over 600 lbs. She could not fit through the door of her apartment. She would cook and eat an entire box of spaghetti... as a snack. Her husband, who weighed around 400 lbs himself, was her enabler - he did the shopping because she couldn't leave the apartment, and he would buy junk food. When she suffered such severe health complications that she had to be taken to the hospital, she was taken out from her apartment's balcony by piano movers. She had to lie on her side, because if she lay on her back, she would suffocate. One day, two nurses came into her hospital room to turn her from one side to the other. They got her onto her back, but couldn't turn her the rest of the way onto her other side, and she died.