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.

@Scrubberdubber , the £10 domino pizza here is a regular one, and to be fair,I don't think that people order one to share. (they might order 2 to share between 2 or 3)

Whilst there are some wonderful women here who can cook healthy meals on a budget ...and no a cauliflower might become cheap but it's not a pizza equivalent

All the evidence is that a healthy diet costs twice as more than an unhealthy one - widely reported earlier this year (UK)

Yes the unhealthy food also encourages people to overeat negating sone of the savings

But it also gives a short term hit of yummy which people in poverty in particular will appreciate

@wherearemypastnames , fresh healthy food is not a pizza equivalent.
Takeaway pizza is junk food that will be consumed as a belly filler.

All the evidence is that a healthy diet costs twice as more than an unhealthy one - widely reported earlier this year (UK) name your source.

it isn't hard to cook healthy meals quickly on a budget. How hard is it to cook a boiled egg with toast, porridge made from oats and water, or pasta in a veg sauce. An apple cost from 20p upwards.
Those items are cheap.

I'd still like all these posters talking about neglect and terrible parenting to explain how they expect social services to solve for this?

There are only so many times most people are willing to est a vegetarian pasta dish with an apple for dessert, even if they have the skills to make it tasty and appealing.

As a fairly good home cook who thinks of what I do as fairly basic- no.elaborate complicated meals here - i have really come to realise how much that is actually a skill and I am quite far ahead compared to many, if not most, people.

Also, boiled.egg with toast?! How does that fill an active growing child after the age of about 6?

Alright so in the situation I described up thread (because all situations are different) this woman seems unable to see her toddler is morbidly obese, like she constantly gives him these family size Haribo bags.

Maybe if social services were to visit her and explain her child is extremely overweight and she needs to sort it out it would give her the kick up the ass she needs to actually sort it.

But then again I'm not one who's claimed all overweight kids are being neglected some are just chunky but in extreme cases involving young kids there's usually something more going on. Some kind of mental illness from the parents idk.

What I would like to know is exactly what are we talking about here.

What is the threshold for the weight(on its own) to warrant intervention?

What happens if intervention doesn't work/parents take no notice ? What should it be escalated to?

What ages are we talking about?

Will all and any medical investigations happen first and other diagnosis that might have obesity as a comorbidity be considered?

I'm not sure abotu social services but there are definitely moments where interventions are attempted. perhaps this should be stronger? However, I'd also say it should be BETTER. As a few people on this thread have said though, even when it exists, it's not always helpful such as the poster wo attempted to call and get the help that was offered after her child was considered to be significantly overweight.

In our case, after we'd done the work to get DS' weight down and he was looking extremely lean and slim... we received a note after he'd been measured at school to say he was obese. NOt only was this handled badly so that he got bullied at school..... after he'd massively lost weight.... but actually, it turns out that after I spent AGES on the website and resources I'd been sent a link to, I finally found a tiny little rider that very tall or very short children's BMI calculation can be unhelpful. So, the fact that he was 90th percentile for height didn't even factor into the automated letter I got which annoyed me intensely and completely set back DS in terms of feeling he'd made progress on his health and fitness.

Toast with cheap bread is not healthy. Or if you think it is, then so is pizza, which is also basically bread at the end of the day. Not everyone can eat apples if they're too poor for good dental services.

What about the egg, porridge, and pasta in veg sauce? You can break an apple fairly easy into smaller pieces with bare hands.

If obesity is now 'treated' with medication, then how does it follow through that neglect is the reason for childhood obesity?

Yeah. Also porridge with water... wow, that's a joyful breakfast. I'm sure that's what everyb6byesr old wants to eat every day, while totally understanding the importance of health vs anything else

Although none of your suggestions have a lot of protein wither? Do.poor.people not need protein? I guess theybcpild just vent a lot of lentils?

I sense a little , "well, poor people.domt deserve joy if they can't afford it" slipping into this thread.

@Sunat45degrees , eggs are packed with protein. Beans and lentils are cheap and nutritious.
Porridge is fine. As kids, you get fed a pile of adverts flogging things like cheerios and coco pops. Of course they're going to look more fun than porridge, but they don't fill you up till lunchtime. They only have nutritional content because it was added.

If the choice was porridge or hunger, you'd choose the porridge, and this was in answer to poverty.

(if the porrige was made with milk, I'd rather go hungry)

It is. And rightly so.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/mar/10/two-teenagers-placed-in-foster-care-after-weight-loss-plan-fails

I know three families where the kids devour and enjoy porridge made with water (I personally much prefer mine made with milk). We put fruit and yoghurt on our porridge which obviously isn't cheap but one family I know have a spoon of jam on theirs and love it and this is still cheaper than a bowl of cereal and milk.

I do think part of the problem is that many many adults, including those who eat a decent diet themselves, decide that things like porridge will never be liked by kids. We had a phrase where I stopped making porridge because it's a bit of a faff and mornings were hectic. My DD then asked for porridge in her letter to Father Christmas!

It's because many kids who are overweight have special needs or special educational needs and those children would be worse off in care (if they even got a decent place). As most sen is undiagnosed now it makes no sense to punish parents for it.

Some children might have disabled parents (physical or mental disability) which prevents them from role modelling healthy activity / diet. Those kids will never make a change until they leave the house.

I'm also of the belief that you parents can only influence a child to be sporty / active before 5 by showing them what normal activity looks like. Once that window of opportunity is missed it becomes really difficult to have any impact unless the child then wants to make a change. This is the part of life where schools can and should play a part - the breakfast clubs money should have been linked to early morning physical activity / morning mile clubs and should have been become a mandatory part of the school day.

@ReallyShouldBeDoingSomethingElse , I make it like this: Rolled oats in a mug, add enough boiling water to cover. Leave to steep for about 5 mins. Eat slowly.

It sounds dreary but is actually tasty. A bit like hobnobs, and you can add jam or fruit or nuts or something.

You're definitely onto something with the 'food children will like'. How much of it is marketing?

My suggestions??? What are you on about? I don't remember making any suggestions...

I have porridge for breakfast most mornings. With a bunch of stuff added which makes it nicer and more expensive.

Porridge with water is gruel. And grim. I wouldn’t eat it.

Also although breakfast cereal isn’t the healthiest option 1 bowl a day won’t kill you. That’s not going to turn you into an obese.

I’m not especially confused by the number of obese children at the prep school my children attend.

Mine seem to be two of a handful of children who walk/scoot to and from school most of the time. There are two other families and a girl with a nanny who also walk, and we all know each other from the commute. Everyone else is deposited at the door in an SUV. I understand that most parents need to work and don’t all work near the school, but it used to be much more common for children to walk to school on their own,

Also, the food they are served is, in my opinion, rubbish. Why on earth would anyone give a child a jam sandwich on this side of 1976? Why do they have to have dessert with every meal? Mine had never had cake or biscuits before they started school and I was shocked to find that other parents weren’t shocked about it!

Fortunately, they do spend a lot of time outdoors and doing sports. But I don’t think that the prep school parents seem more clued up on nutrition and activity than parents at any other school.

My yeah was agreeing with you! :) The rest of the post was in response to what you were replying to. I can see how that wasn't clear! 😂

Yes, but there's nothing wrong with frozen food in itself. Frozen veg with frozen fish is very healthy and not necessarily upf. The issue is surely the choice of food and the quantity of it.

At primary only one of my friends had a mother who was at work when she came home from school and that was only because of a divorce, which was still rare in our area in the 80s.

How do you mean that they fed you the same as your siblings? You mean exactly the same amount of food? Were you getting food somewhere else then?

I don't overeat, but I've never understood forgetting to eat. Surely your stomach rumbles after a bit?

I forget to eat, but I don't normally have food noise. I might think 'it's lunchtime' and then forget because I am busy. I eat when I'm properly hungry and that's it.

If I am, like now, at my desk and being bone idle, I'm tempted to look for something to nibble. (have a late meeting today and there will be work from it, that if it wasn't for the time zone difference I'd be doing now)

@TheSassyTraybake , porrige made with oats the way I make it isn't anything like gruel.