Why isn't child obesity classed as neglect?

[dinklu]

(Setting aside medical conditions that may contribute to weight gain.)

If a child is severely underweight due to a lack of proper nutrition, it is often seen as neglect. But when a child is significantly overweight due to consistently poor diet and lack of exercise, it is not typically viewed in the same way. Why is that?

Is it because there aren't enough resources or support for parents? Or is it simply not recognised as a form of neglect in the same way malnutrition is? Curious to hear other perspectives.

Probably can’t afford it. It’s the excuse for everything now.

It is. But severe obesity only.

Maybe because UPFs are cheaper so it’s seen as a reaction to their economic status?

I thought it was?

Nope. Only if the child has a medical issue and the weight is causing it; and the parent doesn't address the weight etc.

It is. I’ve taught children who have a social worker due to obesity.

Because (a) childhood obesity is an outcome of complex factors including education, poverty, food deserts, poor health services and lying bastard processed food companies.

And because (b) social services are so overwhelmed they can't take on any more issues.

Finally (c) it's apparently "human rights" for people to eat themselves to death. And shorten the lives of their children by stuffing them. Do you remember the parents who pushed MacD's through the school fence when junk food was banned from lunch boxes?

Overweight parents can't lose weight themselves so how do we expect them to stop the children gaining weight? Would you test every overweight child to determine if their overweight was caused by neglect or genetics? When we study the predisposition to obesity it's about 70% genetic. The only way to control it would be to completely change our national food landscape and ban ALL processed food of the type that was invented post 1980.

It's incredibly difficult to lose weight. Would you take overweight children off their parents when they inevitably fail to control their weight? Would that do more or less damage then them being overweight in the first place?

Some dc want to eat everything and others nothing as toddlers.,They’re born like that. Mine couldn’t be arsed with food. Her friend asked for food constantly. Both are hard to manage. I personally wouldn’t judge as some are just hungrier. They seek every opportunity to eat more. Taking food off high chairs next to say my unhungry dc. Asking for extra at school, at parties, if. Dc brings in cake it sweets on their birthday at school. I wouldn’t judge the parents necessarily.

It is. There was a family several years ago who had all their children taken into care for this very reason.

Even putting aside all the other problems with this the genetics of obesity is complex and some families are much more predisposed to obesity than others. Families need support and better access to healthy food. Also need to look at things like funding healthy quality food in school rather than ultra processed crap.

When my child was weighed at school, I got a slip home saying he was overweight. It had a number to call for advice. So I called it, because chikdren have different needs to adults and I wanted proper medical advice. I left a message. No one called back. I tried again. Noone called back. Third time, I got someone who said they couldn't really advise as child nutrition is different (this was the number for children) and to try the GP.

I went to the GP, who looked at my son and said he looked fine and was probably about to grow.

He did grow.

Within about two years he was never overweight again, without me doing a thing.

So, I think unless there are actual support services for diet and a better understanding of weight in children, it could be very dangerous.

It would need to be obesity in combination with other issues. Which is probably already is. Like a lack of willingness to seek support or make changes.

We've managed to create a society where it's seen by many as perfectly acceptable for people to comment that someone who is underweight is 'too thin' and 'must eat too little' but completely unacceptable to note that someone is 'too fat' and 'must eat too much'. It's staggering really how we've ended up here but it means that sensible conversations about a child being overweight can't be had and it's considered mean and nasty to even suggest that there's something amiss.

I don't get the argument about UPF food being cheaper as you need a bigger volume of it to feel full. Even my DD has noticed that if she has crisps and sweets as a snack she actually feels hungrier than she did prior to the snack.

I was at a rapid review for a child death recently and the child protection plan that had been in place at the time was being discussed, that plan included the obesity of an older sibling as neglect.
I think it would have to be quite serious or alongside other risk/neglect factors to pass threshold for social care

Honestly I think it's absolutely criminal. It's ruining a person's life when it's barely even started.

Not every problem can be solved through child protection processes. Childhood obesity is at epidemic levels, there aren't the resources or solutions within social services to tackle a national crisis.

It's also not as simple as blaming the family. Far more children are obese than in the past, are we saying parents are significantly more neglectful than they used to be? No, the reasons are more complex than that, to do with poverty, cheap food, easy access.

Malnutrition is different as it's much more to do with problems within an individual family, there's no national-level pattern.

Better perhaps to tackle the food industry - unhealthy food should be more expensive per calorie than healthier food ?

Upf isn't just junk food though. It's also supermarket bread, for example. Something that would be extremely hard for me to give up.

Can I say my kids go to a private school and in the Prep school there are so many very obese children!! We are a sporty school and I see these kids really struggle.

I was an obese child, 10 stone at the age of 10. So I was big. I remember the shame and horror of doing sports in a non sporty school! I was always last in cross country or second to last. My parents were not educated around food, they thought frozen food etc was better for us, bizarrely better than food from our heritage.

I think my parents needed an education (they were illiterate) however bar health reasons I am bemused by the level of obesity in our prep school.

I agree that it's not as simple as blaming the parents. For one thing, you can never know 100pc whether someone has an illness making them fat or not.
However, I'm not sure that more children being obese than in the past justifies arguing there is no neglect. There are more cars than in the past so parents have to teach their children to cross the road more carefully more than they had to do 100 years ago.

The ONLY way to resolve obesity at a population level is to drastically change the availability of UPFs.
Either ban them outright or stick a 200% tax on junk and use it to subsidise veg and lentils etc to the extent that they are basically free.

Yes, some people are genetically predisposed to put on weight slightly more easily than others. But people haven't changed since the 1970s when the vast majority were healthy weight. It's the availability of junk which has changed, and it alters the way our bodies work.

The junk has to go.

Yes, healthy food should be cheaper, but I'm not entirely sure it would solve the problem. High prices on alcohol and cigarettes haven't stopped people smoking, although they do help.

Yes I take your point. UPF bread and cereals are probably used in 99% of households. I'm not sure these are the problem though.

I do wonder if inactivity plays a bigger part in the problem and it's definitely not mostly UPF that's responsible. At DD's school only 2 children out of 200 appear to be very overweight. They all have packed lunches and according to DD everyone has crisps and a chocolate biscuit in their lunch, the vast majority on the side of a white bread ham or cheese sandwich. Chicken dippers, pizza and fishfingers are the most common supper. Yet these kids are not overweight (or certainly don't look it). Maybe it's because we live in a village with easy access to open space and a good playground. Maybe they have UPF but don't eat an excessive amount of food over all.

Excessive eating must play a part and that's where the tally with deprivation seems a bit odd. Would a bowl of cocopops, a free school lunch and a dinner of 4 fishfingers and a standard portion of oven chips really be enough to make a child obese? They must be eating more than this so the argument about cost seems shaky.

My child is overweight, not obese though. This is due to portion sizes, not the food she eats. We are tackling it but are reducing the portion sizes to what they should have always been, not restricting further so she looses weight as she is below 10 years old, so we are waiting for her height to catch up to even out her body weight, so it’s happening, but taking an age!!

My youngest also doesn’t play outside so that’s a hinderance but it’s a different world now a days. She also doesn’t attend any clubs as both parents work full time. After school club she can play in the playground or do art type things, so no actual activities that would help with weight loss like netball or gymnastics. It’s an uphill struggle.