to think that parents who have very obese children are guilty of neglect

[MeconiumHappens]

It's accepted that if a child is undernourished, dirty, ignored/emotionally neglected etc that a family can be subject to children's services intervention, but what about those who bring their children up to be VERY obese? Surely over feeding/poor nutrition in the EXTREME is a child welfare issue. I'm not suggesting every child noshing on a happy meal be immediately sent to foster care (before someone inevitably makes a similar comment) and am thinking of the most extreme cases but would be interested in other peooples thoughts on this. It seems to be something we side shuffle around to not upset the child/insult parenting but if its a health issue surely it needs to be managed appropriately for the childs health.

fear usually and past experience MeconiumHappens lol im always doing it too as if we have to explain every though process just in case someones hyper sensitive

It's the key question merconiumHappens. Until you can answer that question to everyone's satisfaction; teachers, HCP, MPs, parents you will not have a way to determine who needs help and who doesn't.

And then you have to figure out what that help should be. And how you measure how effective that help is. And what to do if the help is not being followed.

We are still a free country, last I checked. And not all obese people are in bad health. I have a friend who is actually obese and her doctor checks her regularly for heart disease/diabetes/you name it and she is perfectly healthy just not what is considered a healthy weight.

And that's the phrase 'what is considered'. We are humans and our bodies react to different things in different ways.

It depends on why the child is overweight imo mrsbiscuits

If it's because the parents are not feeding the child properly and ensuring they get enough exercise...that's pretty neglectful in my eyes.

they cant really /shouldnt single dcs out but maybe they should do more sport /pe in school you get to secondary and they do hardly any compared to first and middle school

It's amazing how the words "obese" and "fat" have become so sensitive to some people. If you have a very fat child check his/her diet. If they are eating well with sensible portions and getting enough exercise then you need to see what's causing them to be overweight. Being severely overweight is a health issue. And that's a trip to the doctor in my book.

If a parent doesn't do this, then it surely is neglect. If a child is ill, or was very underweight, surely a parent would visit the doctor. But we prefer to put it down to being "big boned", "puppy fat" or whatever rather than admit our children have a health problem that might be caused by a poor diet.

Yes different children have different dietary needs and different metabolisms, even in the same family. Hence the one underweight one overweight scenario, even if eating exactly the same. If a parent is confident that they're feeding a balanced diet then portion size and additional food intake (sweets etc.) need to be examined.

It IS a health issue and it needs to be taken seriously. If parents are unable to manage their children's weight then yes, some kind of intervention IS needed, although through support and guidance rather than through removal. However, if a parent is either unwilling or incapable of tackling the obesity then it should be treated as other forms of neglect and foster care would be an option.

Whilst i agree with all those who say the simplified BMI is a fairly useless tool , it doesnt take a rocket scientist to look at your own child and realise they are fat . And before you all jump up and down , my DD is fat , this is my fault ,although compounded by medication she takes . We are now doing something about it , i would hate her to have to go to secondary school fat .

Its a difficult one OP.

I think I know what you mean. There are children at DD1 school that I see, when they come out of school there is always a can of fizzy pop (once I saw Red bull given to a 4 year old - I kid you not) and a trip to the local fried chicken place. Now you may say this is a one off treat, but I see it several times a week with the same children.

In my own family I can see cousins where one eats nothing but crap and is hugely overweight. Not a problem you think, he's young and it will drop off when he's older. Except it hasn't and the main cause of death in that side of the family is heart attacks. Why add to the risk?

I worry about DD1 (DD2 still quite a skinny minny), she has a bit of a podge, neither me or her dad are slim and could do with losing a couple of pounds. We never mention diets, there are always treats available but after a healthy main meal (with the odd treat thrown in here and there) and we talk about healthy food.

I think some people don't get the value of healthy eating and problems that they could be storing up for themselves and their children in later life. Some people are always going to be larger/smaller than others, its the way they're built.

You could say the same about smokers, that they encourage their children to smoke and all the risks there, and drink for that matter.

Hang on, Troisgarcons, can you run that by me again - when you were a child there was no ADHD, ODD, etc, and related issues either. Yes? This is what you said, did you mean this?

Spitzer invented/discovered and published his manual of mental disorders in (I think) 1980 and the terms we use today were coined in that . So no, in 1980, I was not a child. Wildly off topic - Spitzer also thinks lesbians and gays can be 'cured' with therapy - so really, I'd take anything he publishes with a very large pinch of salt.

1 in 30 British children have ADHD, 400,000 of them are medically coshed.

Spitzer himself admits upto 30% are misdiagnosis.
psychdata.blogspot.com/2007/05/great-adhd-myth-psychiatrist-who.html

This phrase is worth a thought or two - "medicalise anti-social
human traits."

YABU. I have a friend whose 6 month old baby weighs more than my 3 yo - he is exclusively breastfed and is currently having tests to find out why he is putting on so much weight. Obesity can have a medical cause even if it is undiagnosed.
Also in the case of obesity due to poor diet I think it would be much better to educate the parents (who are often obese themselves) than to accuse them of neglect.

'Until you can answer that question to everyone's satisfaction; teachers, HCP, MPs, parents you will not have a way to determine who needs help and who doesn't.'

Tee are you suggesting that we don't do anything to help these kids because we can't find one single definition that will be correct in every single case?! I would think it would be better for a non-obese child to get reffered to a GP unecessarily than a morbidly obese child being allowed to suffer for fear someone may have to go to the doc's when it isn't strictly necessary!

Yes. That is what I am suggesting, ohnoshedittant.

Because until you have a definite definition and criteria you're going to get parents who say 'my kids isn't in danger, isn't obese, because they aren't X Y or Z'.

Of course, you're going to have parents who say that anyway, as some live with blinders on. But it's easier to fight against if you have a definite to point them at.

YANBU

I was the obese kid. My parents loved me too much. They didn't have the ability to say no to my demands. Do I think they were neglectful, No, but I do wish someone had stepped in to offer some much needed advise to them. Maybe then i wouldn't have grown into an obese adult.

there aren't definites in anything though are there? Some people smoke their whole lives and reach 80 in fine health and some die of lung cancer at 40. Should we stop advising people not to smoke incase someone who would have been fine quits unecessarily? In the majority of cases smoking has a negative affect on health. In the majority of cases very young children, with a very high BMI are obese and this will have a negative effect on their health. IMO it would, be better to help these children and have a few children who have a high BMI, but are healthy sent to the doctors unecessarily, than to allow them to suffer ill health.

Going to stick my neck out again and say I think diet is more important than exercise. I wasn't allowed to roam round the neighbourhood at all, never mind from dawn till dusk, and neither were my friends, but none of us were overweight.

If you watch people on these "my family's too fat, please help us" programmes, they consume a huge amount of junk food. I saw one Gillian Mckeith programme a while ago with a woman and two grown-up children, who would have a takeaway as a snack before dinner! And their dinner was about twice the size of what our family would eat. It would take days and days on a treadmill to work off one day's worth of calories in those meals.

There is the other flip side .Pe is being cut back in schools as well .so tahts some excerise gone .not saying that is just the cause and the sole responsibily lies with schools .But it could be a factor

I agree, OP
The instances of obesity due to genetics are very rare - most are due to poor diet and I think it's very irresponsible of parents who allow their kids to become grossly overweight. (I'm not talking about a few extra pounds). They're dramatically increasing the chances that their kids will encounter serious illness in later life. It makes no sense to me and I feel really sad when I see a four/five year old child waddling around a playground, unable to run and play properly. What kind of a start is that to give them?

I think my 4 year old may be a little bit overweight, not quite fat. He wears normal size clothes and they fit him fine although waist sizes on clothes for children seem massive these days so I'm not sure thats a good measure. He does have a little bit of a double chin and I think this should have gone by now. He has never been anything but dead on average when he was being weighed by the HV but it's a long time since they weighed him.

He doesn't eat (too much) crap but does watch too much telly. I will weigh him this week thanks to this thread making me think about it.

Well very occasionally Children's Services do become involved with families where the child is significantly obese, ie where their weight and fat is impacting on their health.

I worked with a family where the child was subject to a child protection plan primarily because of his weight. He weighed about 55kg at 5 years old.

The CPP wasn't a knee jerk reaction, it followed many months of work with the family after the child's weight had been handed over as a potential problem by the HV to my team (school nursing). This family had received sustained intervention since the child was very young and the family just didn't take on board any of the support. Despite the involvement of many professionals such as the GP, dietitians, a paediatric consultant who had excluded any pathological cause for his obesity, home support workers, HVs, SNs and education staff he was still gaining large amounts of weight. The family admitted they fed him crap and couldn't say no to his demands for food.

When I moved on from that job the child was very very close to being taken into foster care. His family were neglecting his physical, emotional and medical needs by overfeeding him.

Clearly the parents of very over weight children may need advice. BUT there is a group of people my Mum, my sister and DD1 who do not live on junk food or snack excessively (my Mum ate the least of all of us) and yet put on weight.
Were my Mum and Dsis supposed to eat half what the rest of the family ate .
Today's healthy life style for the whole family messages might of helped a bit, but your average 70's SAHM didn't tear around on a bike, jog or head to the gym (there was no such thing).
I gently prod DD1 if I think she's being silly about sweets etc and try to encourage her to be active, but its difficult to find anything for a teenager who wants to do recreational rather than competitive things. (She has danced and trampolined, but both classes have closed).
Also I have to be very careful what I say because image obsessed and exactly ideal weight DD2 is exactly the sort of girl who I could see becoming anorexic.

Food is too cheap, and a lot of parents are too lazy to cook proper meals, and to control what their kids do (ie making them play outside instead of lounging around at home playing videogames).

FFS, I was a massively fat kid (albeit not when I was a toddler like some examples given) but there was sod all my parents could have done about it that they weren't already doing. I just find every single form of physical exercise excrutiatingly boring, always have done. What were they supposed to do, make me run laps round the garden?

Yes, VERY young children that are obese need medical help. But it's usually the case that it's the parents who need education.
My suggestion would be to bring back the old-fashioned Home Economics at school - so-called "Food Tech" is no substitute for actually learning to cook simple, decent meals from scratch. I wish I'd had Home Ec., because I can't cook for toffee. Failed at making fairy cakes the other day, despite everything my mother has taught me, and I panic in the kitchen all the time.

A little education would go a long way, I reckon.

That's parenting by proxy though, why should schools have to teach basic life skills. It is the parents job after all.

YANBU at all, Britain i sitting on an obesity timebomb and seriously needs to do something about it, bring back st Jamie Oliver! The garbage children are fed are school is a disgrace

My ds was overweight, but the situation has improved as he has got older. We make sure he does plenty of excercise and watch his diet.

I think that social services should only get involved if parents of a moridly obcese child deny there is a problem and refuse help.