Jonathan McCullum was in perfect health at 155 pounds when he left last summer to spend the school year as an exchange student in Egypt.

When Jonathan McCullum went to Egypt as an exchange student in September 2007, the 5-foot-9 teen weighed 155 pounds. When he returned to Maine four months later, he was down to 97 pounds and could barely climb a flight of stairs. The 17-year-old said he was starved by the family who hosted him.

McCallum says he was denied sufficient food by the Coptic Christian family he lived with. Copts fast for more than 200 days a year. McCullum thinks the family starved him out of malice and stinginess, not because of any religious tradition. But host father Shaker Hanna says that McCullum was eating enough for six people.