Treat child obesity as neglect, say doctors

[Honey]

Treat child obesity as neglect, say doctors | the Daily Mail

Children under 12 should be taken into care if they are obese, according to doctors.

The call comes after a survey of paediatricians revealed that obesity was a factor in 20 child protection cases last year.

Concerns were raised after a BBC investigation found children as young as six months were overweight due to parental overfeeding.
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Some doctors now believe extreme cases of overfeeding a young child should be seen as a form of abuse



The problem is so widespread that the British Medical Association will debate a motion on childhood obesity at its annual conference later this month.

Doctors will say that, in extreme cases, overfeeding a child under 12 should be seen as a form of abuse or neglect and treated as a ‘child protection issue’.

Rotherham GP Dr Matthew Capehorn, who put forward the motion, said: ‘If you are faced with a child who is severely under-nourished, alarm bells would be ringing, and social services, doctors and other authorities would be involved.

‘But the same approach is not taken when faced by a child who is obese. Having a child who is overweight poses as much of a danger to their health as a child who is suffering-malnutrition; arguably, even more risk.’

Dr Tabitha Randell, a consultant paediatric endocrinologist at Nottingham University Hospital, claimed some parents are killing their children with kindness.

She said: ‘I get many parents of obese children claiming there must be a problem with the child’s glands causing the weight issues.
‘But this is very rarely the case. Parents seem unable to accept that it is a matter of controlling food intake.’
In one extreme case, Dr Randell saw a two-year-old who weighed more than four stone. Children this age should weigh around two stone.

The BBC investigation also found that, far from deliberately overfeeding their children, many parents did not understand the correct portion sizes for youngsters.

One parent said a friend had fed a baby a McDonald’s milk shake with a bottle and a teat.
But the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health does not support the conference motion. It said: ‘Obesity is a public health problem, not a child protection issue.’

Wow, 6 months is so young to be overweight! Jesus!

[A*O]

It's possible to be overweight AND malnourished, especially if you are feeding your kids crap because you are too lazy, ignorant or stupid to understand even the basics of healthy eating. I think it is a form of abuse but removing the kids into care is a bit extreme. A lot of parents who deliberately over-feed their kids do so for some kind of control. They want their kids to be helpless and dependent and turning them into Jabba The Hutt puts them exactly where mommy (and it usually is mommy) wants them.

[KrisNine]

Reminds me of a lady and her kids in my old neighborhood. She was so controlling and she home-schooled her kids. She didn't want to miss out on a fart. Anyway, all three of the kids were obese. Not chunky cute, but huge. They always had candy, soda, fast food, ice cream, etc. I don't know when she schooled them. She was this teeny tiny little thing with a giant man-ape for a husband and big kids.