Obese child taken into care

[edam]

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article2067120.ece

I know she's only eight, but she's five foot tall already. So size 16, although big, isn't absolutely ludicrous at that height, is it?

Dress size 16 at years old is absolutley ludicrous imo.

8 years old that should say.

5ft at 8 yrs old screams genetic/growth issues surely?

size 16 and 5ft tall, is fat. size 16 itself is not ludicrous, when it's a woman, with hips and breasts. A size 16 child will look very different to a size 16 woman and will be much 'fatter' iyswim.

However, what struck me about the article is the "other issues" bit.

I think that SS have acted based on many things to do with the family. The media wants the headline that the kid was taken away because she's fat. I'd bet my last mars bar that is not the story at all.

Doesn't eating masses and masses of calorific food in childhood stimulate growth as well as weight gain though?

I am a similar height when I weigh 7.5 stone I am a size 8-10, when I weighed nearly 9 stone I was a size 12 and was overweight on the body mass indicator so I'm afraid to be a size 16 she must be obese I hope they find out what is wrong with and she goes home soon

I agree with Piffle. That's very tall for a girl of 8.

dd2 is a 98th centile gal, she will be 5 foot by the age of 10 - eek help, as tall as me!

The Times says 'officials said that there were concerns about the girl's upbringing but that it was her obesity that triggered the decision to put her into care'.

Agree there must be something out of the ordinary for her to be 5' at eight years old.

still there are factors too, like her parental and extended family height and at what age the women stopped growing. Still if you eat lots of food with growth hormone in I suppose it would be likely to do that to you.....glad we try and eat organic. It does seem very likely that there is an underlying medical condition though.

" sixe 16- 6 sizes bigger than the average for her age - sorry what size is average for her age ? 6 sizes smaller ? They don't mean a size 6 , do they ?

well actually for her age and height (therefore presumably not a curvy figure more of a beanpole) a size 6 would be about right, a more developed child about a size 8

So difficult! My neighbours' boy is only 6 and weights 9 stone and is 135cm in height. He eats all day long: sweets/cakes/crisps ... and has Coke for breakfast. His baby teeth crumbled away due to excessive sugar in his diet.

His parents are great people and in all other respects, they're thoughtful and loving. But they're feeding their kid into an unhappy and unhealthy adulthood - and they can't see it.

They're in complete denial. Naturally I've not said a word, but we've just back from a week's holiday with them ... and the over-eating was worse than I originally thought.

I don't know what the answer is

just the fact that the mother is quoted as saying ' she doesn't overeat' says a great deal IMO.

Is being obese hereditary ? there are two pretty overweight children in dd's reception class and both have at least one very fat parent.

COKE for breakfast??????

good grief.

Well... Things have to be fairly extreme to be taken into care. Its not that easy.

She might have a gentic problem, but sometimes excessive eating can possibly cause premature puberty.

www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3a873e4d721c.htm

She may have had a premature teenage growth spurt and that is why she is so tall.

Social workers aren't out to break up families. I am sure that they will try to reunite the family if it is in the best interests of the child.

Most children who are obese will be tall. Excess calorie intake will stimulate growth in height as well as weight gain. Weight is a key trigger for pubertal development and the associated growth spurt but unfortunately the early pubertal development often leads to the child having a shorter adult height than would be expected.

BMI for children is age specific and there are centile charts for BMI just as there are for weight and height. The curve of the line on the BMI chart is slightly wiggly to reflect the differeing proportions of fat and muscle that children have, ie normal toddlers look chubby whereas most seven-eight year olds are much slimmer in appearance. Therefore whilst being a size 16 adult may not make you obese a child can be considered obese with a BMI of much less than 30 which is the figure usually quoted for adults.

Alarm bells for a hormonal cause for obesity start to ring if the child is short and fat as then the extra calories aren't triggering a growth spurt and that indicates that there is a problem Tall and fat is massively more likely to be due to excess calorie intake and too little activity.

Didn't know a lot of that laDi - intersting.

The article also says "She has suffered several health problems associated with her weight". I think if anyone posted here saying something like 'my neighbours DD is ill and they're deliberately making her worse' we'd all be shouting report them wouldn't we?

SS don't take children into care on a whim, I hope they had good cause but if they did then it's absolutley the right thing.

I thought girls didn't get very much in the way of a pubertal growth spurt - puberty acts more like a growth stop, overall. Puberty in girls seems to be often triggered by mass, hence all the very early puberty happening these days.

Girls do get a pubertal growth spurt but it occurs early in puberty and then is halted by the hormonal changes associated with regular ovulatory menstrual cycles, as a trigger for this also body mass these girls tend to be tall and big early on but may well end up short as adults.

In contrast boys tend to have their growth spurt late in puberty but they growth faster and for longer.

Can you tell that I'm interested in childhood obesity!!