Is having overweight kids child abuse?

[Mummyme1987]

A friend posted on Fb that parents with fat kids are child abusers. Except for kids with medical problems. It started with comments on how it's awful that there's a generous fit section in clothes shops. I'm shocked that people think this. I think the majority of parents don't just feed their kids crap, and some kids are bigger than others, and unless it is a very extreme case it's not child abuse. Thoughts?

Parents are responsible for their children's health. But health comes in many sizes, and to say that parent is being neglectful or abusive because there child is overweight (even though they eat healthy foods and exercise) is ridiculous. There could be many factors as to why a child looks chubby but is otherwise healthy, like future height and body shape and size.

Also, links:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/12114339/Social-services-warned-about-boys-health-a-year-before-he-died-of-scurvy.html

www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-24388175

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3089781/Young-mother-starved-baby-girl-death-living-fantasy-life-Facebook-spared-jail-second-time.html

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3161181/Mother-jailed-life-brutally-torturing-starving-four-year-old-son-death-DEAD-prison.html

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_in_the_United_Kingdom
"hospital admissions for malnutrition in the England have almost doubled in the years between 2008 and 2013 rural areas are most affected. Labour MP Jim Cunningham obtained the statistics said, "We have seen high-energy prices, the bedroom tax and a growth in organisations helping people who can't afford food – and now this."[18] Health Minister Dan Poulter argued that the rise in malnutrition could be partly due to better diagnosis and detection by health professionals of people at risk.[19]

The Trussell Trust reported in 2012 that it feeds tens of thousands of people each year and a 2012 study undertaken by Netmums found that one in five mothers would regularly miss out on meals so as to be able to save their children from going hungry.[20][14] According to a March 2013 report, teachers in London schools said that at least five children per class turned up without having had breakfast, with 41% of teachers saying they believed the children's hunger led to symptoms such as fainting.[21][22] London charity, Kids Company mames five inner London schools where 70% - 80% of pupils do not always have food at home or do not know how they will get their next meal, the problem exists nationwide. Children are sometimes visibly malnourished and some lose their adult teeth due to unhealthy diet.[14]"

The last CP training I had said that overweight kids should be logged as a neglect indicator in the same way underweight/malnourished kids should be. In practice I don't fill out a log of concern form for kids that are bigger than the rest, but I do fill them out for children who's weight is impinging on their ability to join in with activities the rest are doing. I also have a friend who is very high up in child protection who is VERY vocal about obesity being a child abuse issue. Don't know if these points have already been raised, only read first page so far.

Let me just make it clear.

If I see an obese child I do not assume the parents are neglectful. There could be many things I don't know about.

However I do believe that in some cases it's down to neglect.

op, your dc has a medical condition that causes or contributes to being obese, so it would not be classed as abuse/neglect unless you are ignoring medical and dietary advice.It is not preventative.

I know of a senario whereby children are obese (one of whom is heading for being morbidly obese). The mum doesn't set any boundaries, to the point that the dc have eaten so much on occasions, causing them to vomit when they got home. There is a lot of hereditary illnesses in the family medical history, a lot of which can be exacerbated or caused by obesity (eating disorders/diabetes/cholesterol/heart disease/blood pressure) and they could develop. Is that considered neglect?

Agree that overweight children should be investigated. If it truly is down to a medical condition then there could be other ways of helping the child maintain a healthy weight. And if it's down to neglect, then those parents should be educated and the child monitored.

thefitfatty over weight children can also be malnourished.

Starving a child has a much more immediate effect. Being over weight has long term health and mental health implications.

I don't believe that you can compare the two personally.

I don't think one should be ignored in favour of the others.

The fact that services are stretched doesn't change the definition of neglect and abuse. Personally I think it's awful that we have to grade how bad neglect is as we can't help them all.

Starving children need immediate intervention. That doesn't mean that some children are over weight trough parental neglect. It does mean that social services will focus more heavily on those they worry are being starved.

Being underweight also had long term health and mental implications as well. So does putting children on restrictive diets from a young age.

Again, the focus should be on health, not weight.

I am one of three. Me and eldest brother were always tall and slim. Middle brother was always stocky. Now we are all adults, middle brother is morbidly obese. Me and eldest brother have eaten a few too many pies over winter and gotten chubby but never more than that.

I wouldn't say its abuse by the definition of the word but I think people are kidding themselves if they think its not an issue. It has the potential to kill them prematurely.

We have 4/5 year olds that wobble when they walk. They can't run.

One of them will eat all of her school dinner (usually not that healthy and carb laden) and then get extra bread and a pudding. She says she's hungry all the time yet never dips into the freely available fruit.

The children I see aren't victims of poverty. They're victims of convenience - the convenience of chucking processed crap at them instead of bothering to interact and take the kids out.

But you can't be obese and healthy, you just can't

But we already do use morbid obesity with out medical reason as an example of child abuse and we already do remove children for it.

Underweight and overweight are already tick boxes on the neglect indicator assesment form and have been for quite a few years

When my BMI was labelled as obese I could run 10kms in forty minutes and my blood tests were all perfect. So, yes, you can.

They'd have to be seriously majorly obese before anything would happen in practice though sock

The amount of children at DD's school who cannot walk very far is alarming. DD is on a placement request so we travel a lot further than any other child to get her there. The school run is a mile each way so to get her there and back, I walk 4 miles and she walks 2. I don't drive and we have a dog, so we're at least an hour at the park running round each day as well. She does three 'active' after school classes (dance, swimming and drama) and two that aren't (keyboard and arts & crafts). Children at her school are driven everywhere, even to the school when it's only a 5 minute walk for them. The bin in the playground is packed full of crisp packets and biscuit snack packets come pick up time. I personally find it a bit horrifying and I'm wondering how long it will be before we end up with lunchbox police in her school. At this point, I'm almost hoping we do get them - quickly. There is at least one very overweight child in every school year (7 primary years, tiny school with 57 pupils). I personally find that quite shocking, but also unsurprising considering the eating habits and lack of exercise. A lot of children are then going home and vegging out in front of a TV or game console all night in between dinner and homework.

I'm not sure what you say about it really I genuinely don't mean to sound judgmental, but it's hard. Is it child abuse? I don't know. I certainly think it's lazy parenting and bordering neglectful. Children need to eat well, get lots of exercise and fresh air and it's great for them to do an active after school club. It's not really a hard formula, is it? Obviously there are children who have medical conditions and/or disabilities where weight is an unavoidable issue, but for children who don't have any such issues, why are parents allowing bad habits and routines to continue? I know services are stretched, but something needs to be done to encourage change. But it's a change that needs to be targeted at parents.

I think you can control your children's weight about as much as you can control their exam grades. You can encourage and help with good habits, provide access to nutritious food and meals (and get them to help prepare them) but ultimately, as your children grow up, their eating and lifestyle choices are increasingly their own, not yours.

In some rare, extreme cases, I can understand the involvement of outside agencies.

Not abuse. But if child is very overweight, not just a bit chubby, but seriously overweight, then yes, I think that is very poor parenting.

Nearly a third of children aged 2–15 are overweight or obese.

Yet, so many people are still making excuses and inventing 'reasons' why it's not the parents fault, those kids aren't getting enough exercise to burn that fat off.

But are a third of parents child abusers?

As a pp poster mentioned neglect IS abuse by the legal definition. Because I've always worked with children or with schools I didn't realise that wasn't widely known.

Agree that children can be malnourished and overweight. It is a situation that needs intervention, but the intervention will largely be done by schools and not social care as a child would need to be incredibly overweight before weight alone would meet the threshold for CIN or CP plan. Overweight/underweight/malnourished/over eating/ not eating are all neglect indicator's though and can be the first flag for much bigger problems

Of course you can control a young child's weight, you are completely in charge of what is in the house and what goes into their mouths

But are a third of parents child abusers?

I have no idea, but unless those kids have medical conditions etc that cause them to gain weight/be unable to exercise, the parents are certainly neglectful imo.

I'm afraid that I do see overweight/obese children and blame the parents. It is abuse. Most often the parents are fat too.

Bad habits and unhealthy living for the poor children.

When my BMI was labelled as obese I could run 10kms in forty minutes and my blood tests were all perfect. So, yes, you can.

That's not the same. You can be fit an over weight. But at the very least your weight is putting extra pressure on your joints.

I'm no longer overweight, but I was throughout childhood. It was a misery, I didn't enjoy my life much...

However, it was my fault. I started putting on the weight, when I would sneak food - I wasn't obese, just overweight. When I reached Secondary School, I was obese - I would eat behind everyone's back. That isn't my parents' fault. They were not abusing me, I was abusing myself.

Like I said before, it depends on the age/how they got obese. It isn't always the parents' fault, and it also isn't abuse - it's poor parenting, if they're small children, but even then, no one knows the circumstances.

I'm not making an excuse - I'm really not. I will do my upmost to make sure my children never become overweight/obese. My childhood was no fun, I never did any of the activities I wanted to - I was too self-conscious. However, the spectrum is too large, and would need to be looked at on an individual basis to really say if it's abuse or not.

Being underweight also had long term health and mental implications as well. So does putting children on restrictive diets from a young age.

Of course it does. But starving to death happens a lot quicker than feeding to death. Which is why it gets more immediate involvement.

Which is my point.