14 year old in a size 24. AIBU to think her mum should do something ?

[Sweetpeach3]

Just read an article in the paper that a girl age 14 is in a size 24 clothes an can't get a uniform to fit her. She's medically healthy just clearly a bad relationship with food. Her mum isn't slim either from the pictures.
AIBU as a mother to think her mum should be trying to encourage her daughter to eat better and not be as big as it isn't healthy what so ever in the long term of things also the name calling etc it isn't a nice thing. Been a big girl isn't an issue I just think a size 24 is rather large for a 14 year old....
My brother is 25 stone at 30 and he's constantly in hospital with problems linked to his weight and it's awful to watch - his wife is a big feeder to him. He was a slim athletic rugby player before he met her then he just spiralled. We've tried to get him to fat club etc. He lasted a week an left as she didn't want to do it. She's also very big. It's a viscous circle because it's easy to put on and hard to shift !

I just personally think as a mum you would want better for your daughter at this age specially

Aside from the weight issue it also highlights how fucking bonkers the uniform rules are in the UK. Can’t get a skirt that fits? into isolation you go (even though you’re wearing a perfectly reasonable alternative) Just rubbish.

Agree herroyal if the school was anything worth its salt they would have arranged to have a skirt made to fit according to their regulations. Quietly and without any suggestion the child has done anything wrong. Fgs treat her with some dignity. Instead of sending her to sodding time out for something she can’t control!

Has anyone ever considered that she may have a learning disability? I know my ds is overweight, he is autistic & part of his condition is that he doesn't know when he is full. He gets healthy meals at home, I send him to school with healthy packed lunch but from leaving home to go to school until he comes home, I have no control over what he does, he has to have money to pay bus fares, buy a drink & spending money, I try to point him in the right direction as much as I can. On a positive note he walks at least 15k steps a day, very often walks the 2 miles home from school, he isn't interested in sport but loves walking.

By 14 it is much harder for parents to control eating.
Dd1 makes her own breakfast and lunch. It is all healthy food but I think her portion sizes are too big. She is a size 14 but is short.
I imagine people are judging me as I am overweight too.
I encourage her to exercise and cook balanced evening meals. It is hard.

By 14, all the groundwork should have been well laid over the previous 14 years! Bringing up a child that is so severally morbidly obese by the age of 14 is appalling.

Schools cannot be expected to magically know that any one childs uniform is going to be a problem

They expect, and quite rightly, that parents will be grown up about it and speak or write to the school in advance, or that day, in an emergency.

But if you cant even communicate with your childs school about flouting school rules what so you expect.

You can bet your life it would have been plastered all over the papers if this family had been pleading with the school for years to help them with their uniform issues.

No, they so wanted to make their sensationalistic point that she deliberately went in despiye knowing the consequences.

I have no sympathy for that sort of disrespect. There is a whole school full of children trying g to get education. Noone would get any if all parents treated schools this way.

The family seriously need help and the dd needs protecting.

Her body is fighting to survive every day, her own production of insulin is going to go haywire and her heart and coronaries will be at massive risk.

Services need to step in

Services need to step in

What services? There are none available even for kids who ask for help. Even for families where the child is comfort eating for serious reasons and who’ve tried everything and who beg for help from doctors and school and social services. The only my DD got was a cheap subscription to weight watchers - we were already doing everything like that. At one point I even wondered if her getting caught eating muffins or whatever walking round the shops would actually be a good thing because maybe if she got in trouble then someone might help!

We were lucky that DH got the chance to do a short stint abroad and make enough that we could then afford really good long term counselling and proper help. Many families couldn’t.

I love the posters saying both that someone should step in and the school are right to enforce their rules...

If the assumption is that the parents are neglectful, some even suggesting abusive, then why is the school punishing the child?

If a child is being neglected or abused and they come to school in the wrong uniform then you help them.

You don’t compound the issues of their childhood by then negatively impacting their education as well!

Its school.uniform. its a standard thing to do.

Im not the one thats preventing service stepping jn! Doesn't mean they shouldn't.

Pp have said how parents ignore schools flagging concerns for the well-being of obese dc!

Are people actually supporting this!

That poor girl needs help.

There are no services to step in though, that’s what I’m saying.

For various reasons my DDs ended up in a bad way. One took to self harm and one to comfort eating. Thankfully the one who self harmed got help very quickly.

Despite me asking, her asking, her school work suffering because of the bullying, her health being at risk and us begging for help to help her (we tried everything up to and including locking ourselves in the house one weekend, with her agreement, and nothing worked) and there is no help out there.

No one is supporting the girl being that weight, just pointing out that there are likely reasons for it but no help to deal with those reasons.

And yes school uniform is a basic, but if it isn’t provided because of neglect or isn’t available because the kid has problems the answer isn’t to scupper her education!

All the speculation and hand wringing is so unhelpful, it was wrong to bring this to the papers as people online are going to rip her apart. It was bad enough being big when I was at school and the internet was in it's infancy.

Over eating and weight can be a complex issue whether it's ignorance over what is healthy, comfort eating, depression or many other reasons. Punishing the child for this is counter productive.

What do you want me to say?

That because there arent any services, I'm not allowed to say that services should step in.

Thats not a reasonable argument.

Noone should stop saying it. Ever.

This thread isn't about whats lacking in the country. It is about what help that poor girl should be getting.

Well we wont bother saying it because its not going to happen.

What a great attitude,.

Not saying, not pushing for it, certainly isn't going to ensure it happens is it

I’m glad you find it funny

How about aiming your ire at the fuckers who cut al the services rather than the parents who can’t get imaginary services to help their kids

This thread isn't about whats lacking in the country. It is about what help that poor girl should be getting.

Those two things go hand in hand - she can’t get the help she should be because they are lacking

That child needs proper grown up help from.the adults around her. Parents, nutritionists, her GP.

The adults in her life need to step in and help her.

Yeah, these pops at me are funny,. Really silly. They derail what the thread is about.

They are obvious for what they are.

The poor child needs help. Take it up with someone else, your ire that most needing help can't get it.

Attack the right people perhaost you might get some.results.

You certainly wont attacking me, unless you thing I am all powerful and make all this change?

I wonder how many of those crying out for services to step in voted for the cuts.

Gosh this thread has derailed!!! Seems to be over.

This thread is so depressing.
I was an overweight teen (size 18 at age 14). Im an obese adult and have been size 14 to size 24 my adult life.
It's impacted on every single facet of my life. Absolutely everything. Even totally unrelated to size aspects, because i am painfully aware that I am ALWAYS wrong. At every moment of the day and night I am abnormal in society and visibly outside what is desirable and what is respected.
My sibling was hospitalised for anorexia so I have seen both sides if the coin. There was never any help for me. In fact most adults in my life from teachers, to family to people in the street only teased and bullied me or made jokes. This was the 90s.
A poster up thread mentioned something that would be joyful and life affirming for this young woman and I totally agree. Being provided with a happy environment where I coukd flourish as a person away from judgement, discomfort and CONSTANT focus on weight would have been amazing. And ironically probably given me the self esteem to tackle it anyway.

@Bigmy Ive had the same experiences as you. I went from a size 28 down to a size 14.

What also needs to happen is people need to stop lying to overweight people. Like telling them you will be more comfortable in the summer time What tosh . You sweat just as much under loose skin as you do the excess weight. I lost the weight in 2002 to 2004 Last years heatwave was hell. I live in a flat that gets a few degrees hotter than it does outside I cracked and hit the choc ices and could not bear to put the cooker on So gained some weight I stayed the same over the winter despite Christmas. Last years four month heatwave really did me in The flat has been so bloody warm this summer too.

I got into a cycle where i was sweating under the loose skin despite a ten stone weight loss Eating ice creams yoghurts etc to cool down so put on a bit of weight Now am struggling to lose it as ive hit menopause so am even hotter.

I lose weight so much better in winter.

Unfortunately the hatred for people in this situation continues even post weight loss..

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3205882-To-think-that-s-it-s-cheeky-as-fuck-to-expect-other-people-to-fund-your-skin-removal-surgery

@purplepoop are you Katie Hopkins?

@Smotheroffive you keep saying services need to step in. How do you know they aren’t already involved?

I agree with PP who said big children almost always have big parents. We have a girl not far off this size at DC’s school and the parent is also one of the largest parents at the school gates.

Parents rarely see their own children as others do. How many times do we see a sad face picture of a larger child in the paper with the parent complaining that they’ve received a letter about the child’s weight?

The article said on of the subjects she is studying is health???

It’s unarguable that she’s not being abused or neglected by her parents.

The NSPCC are very clear about what consistutes child abuse and neglect.

www.citizensadvice.org.uk/family/children-and-young-people/child-abuse/what-is-child-abuse/what-is-child-abuse/

I hope that as her story has been made public by her mother the local social services have either been alerted (anyone, including you and i, can make a referral if a child is suspected to be at risk of abuse or neglect, and with her full name and school in the public domain I’d be surprised if someone hasn’t already notified them) via a member of the public or maybe the school. I don’t think it’s possible to overstate how serious it is to do this to your own child.

I have one obese child. My others are normal and one is on the skinny side (he is lower normal weight , just very athletic). It’s a constant battle. When he was little, it was easy. He was slightly over weight but you could control it better. Now as a teen it’s difficult. You can’t stand over him in school and make the choice of his foods. You can’t stand behind him in the lunch queue and tell the lady “no he can’t have that sugar drink give him water or the sugar free one”, also friends parents feed him because he is a “big lad”.
Currently we are under a London hospital due to liver problems, and the local hospital dieticians.

I make him the food as “prescribed” by the dietician. It’s a big plate of food! Half is salad/veg. Quarter is protein, quarter is carbs. It’s nice stuff, air fried chips, wedges, chicken breast, grilled lean meat kebabs etc. Sweet salad leaves, mixed with green beans, sweet corn, veg etc. I always makes sure it looks nice, no limp lettuce and dry chicken, but he still wants to eat something else!

I’ve been told he doesn’t need any CBT counselling for his insistence to overeat. It’s not a mental problem. A lot of the time people assume the parents are feeding the kids pizza and takeaways every night. It’s not the case.