Parents of obese child arrested

[WildThong]

I'm not sure what I think of this. It seems they are 'known' to social services and have had previous contact about this. It must be awful for the child. For the school and doctors to have contacted social services again they must have been very concerned.
here

[Sirzy]

Whichever angle you look at it from though the parents have to take some of the blame (assuming no medical reason for the weight gain). We aren't talking about a child a few stone overweight, but a child who is 3 times the weight they should be. That doesn't happen overnight and some of that responsibility has to fall to the parents as at that age they are the ones who have primary control over the diet and exercise of the child.

[fanjoforthemammaries7850]

We dont know anything about his SN either.

He could have Prader Willi or anything.

Parent blaming is not great ever IMO.

Parent helping is good.

[Deverethemuzzler]

I agree that the parents have to be the lead players in sorting this issue out.
There would have already been considerable efforts made to help them if they got to the voluntary plan stage.

I think what we are trying to make clear is that this case is not as the DM would have us see it.

The DM must be near exploding with trying to work out how to report this. They hate SS and are accusing them of taking children because the parent is a working mother, they parent has mild LDs, the parent is too rich etc
but the also hate fat people and marginalised people and they think most childhood disabilities are made up.

[Deverethemuzzler]

I don't know how I am going to stop my DS getting the food he wants when he is 6 ft and 15.
I don't know how I will get him out of his bedroom if he doesn't want to come out.

All I can do is hope the stuff we are doing now will help us mange his behaviour when he is bigger and stronger than both of us.

Its only hope though.

[Sirzy]

Fanjo although I can see where you are coming from to a point you must be able to see the parents have played a role in allowing things to get so out of control? Support has already been offered which seemingly they didn't follow.

Something had to be done for the sake of the child

[fanjoforthemammaries7850]

Not saying nothing should have been done.

I just hate the sleazy parent blaming articles the DM prints.

[ashtrayheart]

My eldest dd (17) has asd, emerging bpd and a chromosome disorder. Since aged 4 she has been plump but we managed to keep it relatively under control. Since aged 14 when she has been one hospital after another she has gained over ten stone partly medication partly because she eats too much and they let her. If she had gained that at home with me no doubt it would be a different story.
I have 3 other slim children. It's not always the parents fault.

[lljkk]

We don't get lots of stories about parents of kids with Praeder-Willi being arrested. Problem here has to be evidence of these specific parents undermining the weight loss regime.

This has even hit international news (Murdoch media).

[GoshAnneGorilla]

I have in RL encountered a child who was hospitalised as a child protection issue for being morbidly obese. During the hospital stay, tests were carried out to see if there was any underlying medical reason for the obesity. There wasn't.

The child was then discharged with support from the dietitians. Not sure what the long term outcome was.

[Bluebelljumpsoverthemoon]

The parents insistence that his weight isn't a problem,
has nothing to do with his diet and lack of exercise and is purely genetic proves that they absolutely are to blame for his being so fat that he's becoming disabled and that they're too stupid to accept outside help to do anything about it.

Parents aren't entitled to overfed their children into a short life of ill health and limited mobility. I've no doubt that their behaviour is down to lack of intelligence rather than cruelty, they probably don't have the ability to understand what they're doing. The police are required to investigate how much these parents understand and whether they should be held accountable for their abusive actions.

No child be forced to suffer the consequences of incompetent adults, social services don't just exist to protect them from 'evil' carers, they're there to protect children from anyone who endangers or abuses them, including the incredibly dim 'loving' ones. They can't help parents who refuse help or are incapable of understanding what they need to do and they can't abandon children who need help.

I feel very sorry for children of parents like this, they're doomed from birth, every child should have the right to be cared for by somebody capable of loving them, protecting them, who knows what good health is and understands it's importance. If people aren't able to provide that, they can't expect to keep custody of their child. Especially when they're actively causing him serious harm, if he was increasingly physically disabled as a result of his parents 'lovingly' using corporal punishment, everybody would support his removal. There's no difference. Harm is harm.

[JaneParker]

Social services should back out of it. They interfere too much. I bet he'll do much worse in care than at home.

[Spero]

But it's not just SW is it? It's the police too. This could tip over into criminal behaviour. Something needs to change for this child and if parents can't or won't see it, don't we have an obligation to help him?

[Spero]

This is an excellent post from suesspicious minds - this isn't a one off case.

suesspiciousminds.com/2014/02/28/taken-into-care-for-being-too-fat/

[MrsWinnibago]

So if it's bad to intervene because of SN or because the Care System is bad...what SHOULD be done?

I agree that SN can really make things very hard for parents...especially given the immense lack of funding for respite etc....and I agree that the children of families who are struggling are sometimes better OUT of the care system than in it...which is inherently wrong as the care system is supposed to protect...but it puts kids at risk.

So what CAN be done to change things? I think that advertising needs to be cracked down on...I think that the sizes of confectionery need to be monitored....there's no need for MASSIVE bags of everything.

I dug up a vintage maltesers packet the other day....probably from the 80s and the thing that struck me was how small it was. I know you can still buy a small packet of them but you mostly see these "Grab bags" or "Sharing bags" which are enormous.

Same with bottles of fizzy drink etc and crisps. Shops like Iceland sell huge bags and boxes of shite at low prices and they should be selling huge bags of veg and fruit at low prices....it's all upside down...confectionery and fatty snacks and meals should be MORE expensive than healthy stuff. Not cheaper.

Equally as was said above, schools need to overhaul their cooking lessons.