The Courier: Taking you to the heart of Tayside and Fife

Obese children ‘may be put in care’A DUNDEE couple yesterday claimed their six children will be taken from them and placed in care unless they can bring their weight under control within three months.

Social workers are understood to be ready to take action to safeguard the health of the children, three of whom are considerably overweight.

Their parents have been told to send the children, the oldest of whom is 12, to dance and football lessons to shed pounds—or risk losing them.

Causing social workers most concern is the weight of the 12-year-old child, who is more than 16 stone, and another three-year-old child who weighs four stone.

The family claim the slimming deadline was set at a meeting with child protection officers last Thursday.

They say they were warned that all six children could be taken into care unless significant improvements are seen by June.

Social workers have allegedly even labelled the 21-month-old child, who weighs 26lbs, overweight.

However, the parents are adamant that their children are only displaying puppy fat and believe it will be shed as they grow older.

Their solicitor, Kathleen Price, has also raised the spectre of another Dundee family having a child taken away because of a weight problem.

Of the six children, she said, “I believe obesity is the main driving force in this case. This family is not alone.”

A spokesman for Dundee City Council said they were not able to comment on individual child protection issues.

The city council’s social work convener, Councillor Helen Wright, was unavailable for comment yesterday.

It is a slippery slope....and that's why I would certainly advocate EDUCATION, EDUCATION, EDUCATION.....if the parents fail to comply with that, then take it to the next level.

No, it's not abuse as we classically define it.....but it certainly could be quanitified as neglect.....if parents don't send their kids to school, it is educational neglect....if parents fail to nourish their children in a reasonable manner, it is neglect.

Many of us become parents with little or no background and nothing really to draw from....the story of the mom feeding the baby eagle brand condensed milk comes to mind.....that was, quite simply, an EDUCATION issue.

I certainly don't see foster care or criminal charges as a first line, only a very last resort.....but if there is an intervention at early stages, with compliance, just think how many people WON'T be looking at WLS as adults.

I completely agree with this. Allowing your child to be obese (barring actual health problems causing the obesity, of course) to the point where their health is in active danger (after all, being young doesn't mean you're not at risk of having heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, etc.) is neglectful, if not abusive.

(Note: I use the term "abusive" to describe situations where the parent has been educated and has been offered assistance and still refuses to take the necessary action. At that point, the parent is knowledgeable about the results of his/her actions and the risks the child faces and is making a conscious decision to place the child at risk.)

To me, being underweight is NOT the same as being overweight. An underweight child is in danger of dying in the somewhat immediate future. An overweight child, while is not healthy, is not necessarily in danger of dying (yes, I know that there are VERY rare exceptions). So to me, the underweight child MIGHT require intervention...even though the idea of the government taking someone's child sickens me (but I have personally seen cases where it was necessary). However, the overweight child, to me, is not in mortal peril and, therefore, should stay with the family. We can then only hope that he or she begins to make good choices as they grow older.

I disagree. If a child is maybe 20, 30, or 40 pounds overweight, I don't necessarily think that the parent should be accused of neglect. But if a child is 100 or 150 pounds overweight, his or her health is being placed in very real jeopardy, just as much as an adult who is that obese, and to me that is neglect. Now, I don't think a child should be automatically removed from the household. I think that there should be mandatory warnings, education, counseling, etc., before any other actions are taken. But if, after those, the parent refuses to change, I do think the child should be removed.

I'm with Laurend on the abuse/neglect thing. That's why I posted the video, and likened it to seeking medical treatment, then failing to follow thru (e.g. get the prescription). She went to the doctors and they told her what to do, and she's not doing, she's still feeding her child crap and claiming "diets don't work". Yeah, no... 4 eggs and more for breakfast isn't a diet. Would education help? Maybe, but it sounds like that route has already been tried. I'm assuming the mother is also obese (an assumption from the skewed sense of portion normalcy), but who knows what else is wrong with her. She clearly doesn't "get it" when 4 eggs, cheese and soda is a healthy diet breakfast.

Reading over this thread has nearly brought tears to my eyes. I guess I could be viewed as an "abusive or neglectful" mother by some of the posters here. Let me just tell you that I am VERY concerned about my daughter. I have taken her to the Dr. numerous times. In fact, we go in tomorrow to have her weight checked. My baby girl, Anna is 9 months old and 26 lbs. Her weight AND height percentiles are off the charts. I am much more concerned at this point then her Dr. is. She is pretty sure that Anna will start to trend down with her weight now that she is becoming more active. The Dr. ordered blood work to be done at my request to check her thyroid, blood sugar, etc. I took her to the lab to have the blood drawn 3 times and they poked her 7 times all unsuccessfully. It was horrible! Her diet consists of formula (dr. says I can not stop giving her this yet) no more then 20 ounces per day, vegetables, fruits, yogurt and meat. No Cereal at all. No juice at all. It breaks my heart and worries me like you could not even imagine. The LAST thing in this world that I want is for my child to start out in this life overweight. I would never want her to go through the struggles that I have with my weight. She will never be taught to eat junk, fast food or too large of portions. Not in this house. Anyways, I think I am just ranting now because the thought of anyone stepping in and threatening to take my children from me is just.... well it's just unthinkable. They are my life! They are the whole reason I even had lapband surgery to start with. I feel that maybe some education is needed in the homes of obese children. Threatening to take someones children is just wrong in this case, at least in my opinion.....

I think you aren't looking at the facts that surround this case. You sound concerned and practive in your child's health. In the case here the mom literally fed him fast food 6-8 times a day, that was it. She refused counceling when offered.

You are doing the right thing by teaching er portion control and no no to fast food. I don't think you are a case of where intervention is called for at all!

I certainly don't see foster care or criminal charges as a first line, only a very last resort.....but if there is an intervention at early stages, with compliance, just think how many people WON'T be looking at WLS as adults.

I don't buy this. How many people post in the "why are you fat?" thread about their parents getting on them about their weight as youngsters and how that actually made it worse? Plenty!

I started getting nagged about my weight at about 8 or 9. At that point, I wasn't even technically overweight, but had gotten pudgy as part of the start of puberty. My family nagged and nagged and made me feel so bad that that I went on a diet at 13 starting me on a lifetime of yo-yo dieting. According to you, my mom was caring and doing the right thing, but I found being picked on about every morsel I put into my mouth and being denied food when I was in pain from hunger to be pretty abusive.

Diet's *don't* work. We don't really understand what causes obesity. We don't really understand what turns it around. Until we do, we can't say that these kids wouldn't be fat no matter what the mom did.

When my dd eats, it doesn't matter how much I put on her plate -- when she's done, she's done and that's it. I could serve her 4 eggs for breakfast but I'd be lucky if she ate one of them. Plenty of parents when faced with overweight kids have cut back on their food and only served healthy food only to have their kids sneak junk food and extra servings at every opportunity.

The government needs to worry about kids who are being beaten and sexual abused and starved and stop trying to get every family to conform to their own narrow ideas of how families should be.

I don't buy this. How many people post in the "why are you fat?" thread about their parents getting on them about their weight as youngsters and how that actually made it worse? Plenty!

I started getting nagged about my weight at about 8 or 9. At that point, I wasn't even technically overweight, but had gotten pudgy as part of the start of puberty. My family nagged and nagged and made me feel so bad that that I went on a diet at 13 starting me on a lifetime of yo-yo dieting. According to you, my mom was caring and doing the right thing, but I found being picked on about every morsel I put into my mouth and being denied food when I was in pain from hunger to be pretty abusive.

Diet's *don't* work. We don't really understand what causes obesity. We don't really understand what turns it around. Until we do, we can't say that these kids wouldn't be fat no matter what the mom did.

When my dd eats, it doesn't matter how much I put on her plate -- when she's done, she's done and that's it. I could serve her 4 eggs for breakfast but I'd be lucky if she ate one of them. Plenty of parents when faced with overweight kids have cut back on their food and only served healthy food only to have their kids sneak junk food and extra servings at every opportunity.

The government needs to worry about kids who are being beaten and sexual abused and starved and stop trying to get every family to conform to their own narrow ideas of how families should be.

True, we can't say with absolute certainty that a child would not be obese if the parent wasn't feeding him/her horrid food. To say that it doesn't have an impact is just ignoring the issue, though. It's like people here who complain that they aren't losing weight and then talk about the full-calorie Starbucks drinks they're sucking down every day, the fried foods they eat, etc. I mean, come on. To use the example that Wheetsin posted, if a parent is feeding her 7 year old child 4 eggs and soda every morning, it's easy to deduce that it might be a pretty huge factor in the child's weight. The fact that there might be another contributing factor to a child's weight does not mean that the other contributing factors should not be dealt with. For most adults and children, obesity isn't a result of, say, Cushing's syndrome or massive thyroid issues. It's most likely a result of a bad diet and limited exercise. Just like any other problem, when you are looking for a solution, you try the simplest one first. And in the case of obesity, it's diet and exercise. If that doesn't work, then you move on to looking for more complex solutions.

Now, that doesn't mean the family has to nag the child about losing weight. But feeding the child a decent breakfast and refusing to stop at McDonald's every single day isn't nagging. There is a midpoint between being a fascist about food and allowing your child to eat a ton of grease, fat, and calories.

To use a bad analogy, it's like someone going to a car repair center because their back seat was wet after a storm. Yeah, the seal around the door might be leaking, but they should first check to see if the window was open.