Forums > Social Discussion > Fat kids - is it child abuse?

Posted: 26th Feb 2007
I was always a big kid, but it was through sheer greed. I'd chow down owt I could lay my hands on be it healthy or not.

When I matured a bit I started having abdominal migraines due to the amount of chocolate I could eat (Those HUGE Dairy milk bars ? Take about 2 minutes to demolish one of them and I'd easily have room for another!). So, in an effort to curb the trend I started mucking about with mates, just gimping around pretending to play rugby at the weekend and stuff, and generally being "big". I was 16 when I was 15 and was bording on the 6' mark.

I remember being fat. I remember being bullied and teased because of it. But, if I speak to anyone now they're very much "You weren't fat!". Odd.

Point is, my parents didn't feed me any more than any other child (My twin has a body not unlike Petre Andre in that song he had where he's pratting around in a waterfall or summat) and he had the same as me food-wise. I just always found more, hunted it down, thieved it.

Some kids are big - but in the above case, she's enabling the child to feast more and thus gain weight.

I'd class that as child abuse or a sort.

A slap or 10 might sort it !

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Posted: 26th Feb 2007
Definitely offer her re-training. To me "abuse" is that you intentionally harm someone. She is definitely harming her child, but maybe someone can open her eyes.

By the way, telling a child to eat until the plate's empty is very wrong. It teaches kids to ignore their stomach telling them when they're full.

Not sure if everyone in China does it that way, but a Chinese friend I had in uni would take an empty plate for a "still hungry" and refill it, no matter how often you said "no thanks". She said it was polite to leave something on the plate if you were full. Good system I think.

"vices are like genitals - most are ugly to behold, and yet we find that our own are dear to us."
(G.W. Dahlquist)

Owner of Dragosani's left half

Posted: 26th Feb 2007

 Written by: Birgit



By the way, telling a child to eat until the plate's empty is very wrong. It teaches kids to ignore their stomach telling them when they're full.

I agree and disagree in the same motion. I agree that forcing a child to finish a plate full and making them gorge them selves is wrong.. but for a finnaky child like I was it was the only way that I would actually eat anything.. I have always left a little mouthful for the gods, but mum drew the line at eating a mouthfull and leaving a plate full..

I honour you as an aspect of myself..

You are never to old to storm a bouncey castle..

Posted: 26th Feb 2007
Ah, that's different then. I was only thinking about it in the context of the "fat kids" thing

"vices are like genitals - most are ugly to behold, and yet we find that our own are dear to us."
(G.W. Dahlquist)

Owner of Dragosani's left half

Posted: 26th Feb 2007
unless its down to a medical condition then yes i think it should be classed as neglect.

Life's too short to worry about where you put your marshmallows

Posted: 28th Feb 2007
Yes, I believe it's abuse. Often enough, you see fat or obese children in the street with crisps, a hotdog or an icecream in their hands. As a child, I never had crisps during the week and my father always told me it was rude to eat while walking on the street.

Ask a question and be a fool for a minute...don't ask and be a fool your whole life.

Posted: 28th Feb 2007
This is something that greatly annoys me and Yes it is child abuse.



It was like I was reading in the sun today about a 9 year old girl who was like 15 stone or something. Her mum was saying how she tryed locking the cupboreds but it was no use she would just spend all of her ten pounds a week pocket money on chocolate. If that was my kid i would stop giving her ten pounds a week for a start.



My parents taught me everything in moderation. I was allowed chocolates and chips and sweets and crisps but I never got fat. Why mum mum took us swimming..she taught us if we wanted a buiscuit have a buicuit just don't have 5 buiscits.
EDITED_BY: BrokenLeaves (1172701656)

Posted: 2nd Mar 2007
15 stone? I thought you guys used kilo's in the UK?
Stones have many different weights here lol!
Speaking as an American, there's wayyyyyyyy more fat kids here than probably any other nation, let alone fat adults too.
I was born skinny, and stayed skinny. I'm 25 now and just starting to breach the 175lb (80kg) barrier. All my life ppl were tellin me that I was gonna be fat someday! Well, they're starting to be right. I guess I'm an average weight now, but I still look good
I also work in the medical field, so from a medical standpoint, excess weight can cause a myriad of other critical health risks like CHF and Diabetes. But fat ppl know this. Stopping fast food ads from kids programming *might* have an effect, but what kid doesn't crave McDonalds? It's like engraved in their genetics. If you stop a kid from seeing it on TV, then they'll hear about it from their friends, etc. Then instead of dealing drugs and weed, they'll be dealin cheeseburgers and happy meals (then move on to drugs and weed lol).
Also predetermined weight is genetic, fat ppl have fat kids, skinny ppl have skinny kids. 1 fat parent and 1 skinny parent can have any combination of the 2. Exercise is good for everybody, but you can still be fit and fat at the same time as well (look at all the strongest man in the world competitions).
Josh

Posted: 2nd Mar 2007
Interesting topic.....

Im with the majority here - its the parents that shape the kids, admitadley its not always clear cut, but fundamentaly its usually the parents fault.....

Saying that, i had a great experiance with a fat kid at cornbury festival last year...

He was the son of the "chef" surprise surprise....... he had me amused for about 2hrs solid....... why..... well:

I was spinning poi, he was facinated and came over, the conversation went something like:

kid - what are those
me - poi
kid - pies?
me - (sory i couldnt help it) - yes pies
kid - pies look fun
me - that they are

(hands poi to kid)

kid - wow, i love pies
me -hahahahaha quietly of course
me - i like pies too, later on ill make them hot
kid - great you can get hot pies too!
me - hahahahaha - yes, yes you can.
kid - id love to have some hot pies....

me (under breath) i think youve had enough

Sorry if people find this offensive, it had me entertained for ages..... i guess my sense of humour is a little twisted, but hey - no harm was done.

Best bit was when he shouted to his dad - dad can you by me some pies!! - dad said no - but ill make you one

"...We don't stop playing because we get old, we get old because we stop playing......."

Posted: 2nd Mar 2007
what is the world coming to???

https://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2007090577,00.html

Posted: 2nd Mar 2007
It isn't always abuse, but it depends on the behavior of the parent.

If a parent refuses to provide adequate medical care to a child, that is considered criminal child neglect. So, for example, the diabetic child who keeps coming in in diabetic ketoacidosis because the parents aren't giving the insulin or the asthmatic who keeps getting admitted because the parents aren't giving the controller medications might be evaluated for criminal child neglect.

I don't see how this is any different. You have a child who is morbidly obese. Obesity frequently causes an array of terrible health problems ranging from diabetes to high blood pressure to congestive heart failure to pancreatitis to arthritis. I'm a pediatrician in the Bronx. Believe me; I've seen the gamut.

A parent who puts forth an effort into controlling his/her child's weight is not an abusive or neglectful parent. A parent who insists on piling the child full of junk food in utter defiance of medical advice is harming the child and should be guilty of criminal child neglect. Not only should these parents lose the right to parent that child and all future children they might have, but they should also have to serve criminal sentences for their actions.

It's one thing to have a fat kid. It's quite another thing to actively promote the weight gain. It's abusive and it should be criminal.

And I am disgusted with the authorities who failed to do their duty in removing this child from the home.

-Mike

Certified Mad Doctor and HoP High Priest of Nutella



A buckuht n a hooze! -Valura

Posted: 2nd Mar 2007

 Written by: MisStix


[I agree and disagree in the same motion. I agree that forcing a child to finish a plate full and making them gorge them selves is wrong.. but for a finnaky child like I was it was the only way that I would actually eat anything.. I have always left a little mouthful for the gods, but mum drew the line at eating a mouthfull and leaving a plate full..

Actually, very few children, and I mean VERY few children (one in several hundred thousand or less) will actually starve themselves. Double-digit percentages of parents claim that "she won't eat ANYTHING!" but the number of children who are capable of starving themselves is vanishingly small.

Kids will tend to eat when hungry and stop when they're satisfied (not full, but satisifed). This leads to a "grazing" pattern of eating. There are many adult "grazers" and these people are almost always a healthy weight. A child who eats a few bites off her plate and leaves the rest is sending a signal that that's all she needs right now.

So wrap up the plate and when the kid's hungry later, heat it up again. Simple solution.

And if your pediatrician isn't plotting height and weight on growth curves, then get a new pediatrician, because that is the only way of knowing if a kid's weight gain is appropriate.

Incidentally, I never worry about teenagers who are "too skinny" unless there is another complaint (fatigue, chronic diarrhea, etc). Teenagers who are "too skinny" and get force-fed milkshakes and such invariably turn into obese adults because their sense of satiety gets thrown off. There are bodies of evidence to support this and yet so many pediatricians ignore it. The solution to normalizing body weight is exercise, which makes fat people lose weight and skinny people gain weight.

-Mike

Certified Mad Doctor and HoP High Priest of Nutella



A buckuht n a hooze! -Valura

Posted: 2nd Mar 2007
Legally, is there a difference between "neglect" and "abuse"? My feeling tells me that I agree with "neglect"... I'd associate "abuse" with forceful bodily harm though, not with encouragement and inability to realise that feeding your obese child more chips is a bad idea. Or am I wrong?

Last thing I heard about the boy btw was that he'd lost some weight and was undergoing supervised diet and exercise... that was in the metro (free bus newspaper) though, so it may or may not be true.

"vices are like genitals - most are ugly to behold, and yet we find that our own are dear to us."
(G.W. Dahlquist)

Owner of Dragosani's left half

Posted: 2nd Mar 2007
I'm not sure. Either one is grounds for removal and termination of parental rights. Both are criminal offenses. I'm not sure if they are one and the same or whether that varies on a state-by-state basis.

-Mike

Certified Mad Doctor and HoP High Priest of Nutella



A buckuht n a hooze! -Valura

Posted: 2nd Mar 2007
the most important thing when dealing with a child is to try and keep them with their family. So often people assume that social workers will just come and take a child. when instead they put every effort into making sure things change while the child is in the family home as its only sever cases where a child is removed straight away. may opportunties will be now open to the mother of the boy in question, parenting classes,dietitions, more support from other out side agencies too either governmentle or charity based.If a child is at risk enough they will be put on the at risk register and monitored.( i worked for social services for a number of years a fact not many people actually know)
I think it should of been done sooner but on the plus side they will be getting help now.

on a nother note it just me off when the parents say "i have tried every thing to stop them from getting into he cupboards and eating all the junk" its an easy one to solve just don't buy the crap in the first place then when your child goes on a snacking hunt all they have is healthy food. This can however back fire and you end up spending £15 a week on dried fruit but its worth it.

Life's too short to worry about where you put your marshmallows

Posted: 3rd Mar 2007

 Written by: Spanner


I don't know if I agree with that.
His mum did consult doctors but no-one else offered her help, so it doesn't seem that a doctor referred him to a health visitor/social services who could have monitored and worked with them.
Apparently he's had some success in losing weight but she obviously needs help to progress, especially if she thinks he'll starve himself if he isn't offered his preferred alternative to healthy food, which is of course unlikely.

My understanding is that she continued to feed him candy and other junk food. That she was quoted as saying "I can't starve him!" and other such nonsense.

If I'm wrong, then the situation is completely different. But even children with genetic syndromes that include obesity (eg. Prader-Willi) shouldn't get this heavy with appropriate supervision.

-Mike

Certified Mad Doctor and HoP High Priest of Nutella



A buckuht n a hooze! -Valura

Posted: 4th Mar 2007
Doc Lightning your right that was the case. Parents use this excuse far too often. its very rare that a child will actualy starve themselves becasue they can only eat the 'junk' and nothing else. It was more than likely the case of if he didn't get he what he wanted he would throw a tantrum and for an easier life she gave into him. its alot easier if you do that than just say no and cook them a healthy meal. i have made the point loads of times that if you don't have the crap in the house they have no choice but to go without it.

Life's too short to worry about where you put your marshmallows

Posted: 5th Mar 2007

 Written by: Spanner


I genuinely believe that if a doctor, health visitor or social worker had explained to her why he wouldn't starve and supported her in changing his diet, she would have felt more confident about not only doing it, but continuing to do it.
It's a really simple solution to you and I but it is easy when you know how.
I'm just saying that, rather than all this fuss, she just needed a little education

i agree although with that she needs education more than having the child taken off her. although i know for a fact that there isn't enough staff to support the needs of parents. you stop seeing a health visitor when the child is at school age. hell its been longer than that since i have seen my son's health visitor and to be honest i don't even know who she is. The times that he health visitors are in the doc surgeries are mainly during school hours too which is pointless once your child is in school. its also not compulsery for you to see them with some parents using the "i can't be botherd" approach not too. you can not educate the parents if they are not willing to go there in the first place let alone being eduacted in such things.

Life's too short to worry about where you put your marshmallows

Posted: 6th Mar 2007
its amaizing the difference in the areas, ours have always tried to avoid home visits, and as i have said before i have no idea who mine is since i moved house 5+ years ago, with my youngest (nearly 7) not seeing one since they were two. As for the doc surgery statment i made, i was just pointing out the times that the health visitor is avialable should you want to see them, as there is no legal cut of age for a health visitor to stop seeing a child. sorry if i confused you.

Life's too short to worry about where you put your marshmallows

Posted: 6th Mar 2007
We had a case of this last night. 9yo girl came in and weighed in at... (ready for this?) 110 kg. Yup. That's about 220 lbs. Do the math on stone for yourself.



NINE YEARS OLD.



So now that I've seen one of these kids for myself...



She came in with abdominal pain. Let's talk about why her obesity was damaging to her last night:



1) You cannot adequately examine an abdomen when it is hidden under 15cm of adipose tissue (fat).



2) She came in with a pancreatic pseudocyst. Her pancreas and biliary systems, having become so overwhelmed with the amount of fat going through her intestines, became inflamed. This formed a large cavity in her pancreas that caused her pain. It also threatened the integrity of her bowels. This is a disease that one rarely sees under the age of 40 and it is a disease of the massively obese. Nobody there had ever seen it in a 9-year-old.



Will it make the news? I don't know. It should, really. But it probably won't because she was african-american and nobody cares about fat black kids.



Folks, I would venture that there is a point where one is beyond "education." If a mother puts her child in the closing train doors to make the conductor stop, we don't call that "a lack of education," we call it "child abuse and endangerment." That's because we assume that anyone who is competent to be a parent should inherently know that shoving a baby in the train doors is dangerous.



Similarly, humans have known since the dawn of agriculture that a human who overeats gets fat. This child did not get this way because the mom was trying to stop the process and needed "education," this child got this way because the mom put her own convenience ahead of her daughter's health and fed her on demand. The girl threw tantrum after tantrum and it was obvious that they were manipulative in nature because she knew they worked. The one time we experimentally tried giving her what she wanted, the tantrum stopped...instantly. So it wasn't necessarily a developmental delay.



It became obvious to me how she had gotten to this state: Whenever she threw a tantrum or bothered her mother in any way, her mother's immediate response was to give her something sweet or salty and greasy. Her mother even tried to feed her (chocolates!) in spite of strict medical instructions that she was to take NOTHING by mouth until further notice. There is really no way that any child, even a child with a genetic syndrome such as Prader-Willi, should be able to get that obese unless the inherent satiety signal is overridden at a very early age.



She'll need a drain placed to drain the pseudocyst. She may develop diabetes from the pancreatic damage.



We as a society acknowledge that it's abuse when you shove a baby in the train doors (yes, this happened last year in New York City). We also acknowledge it as abuse when you don't send a child to school or when you fail to get appropriate medical care.



Yet for whatever reason, this situation, even though it is clearly willful mistreatment by the mother, is not considered neglect. People say "well you don't understand it from her point of view! Maybe she was overwhelmed!" and "maybe she needed education!" and such. But what she was really doing was the equivalent of giving her child a hit of pot or morphine every time she acted up. Chocolate, sugar, fat, and salt all act on the same brain pathways. Had it been drugs, she would have been out of the house in an instant.



I would argue that using chocolate as her tranquilizer was more damaging than drugs ever could have been. This child will be lucky to live to 35.



And she won't be removed from her mother.

-Mike

Certified Mad Doctor and HoP High Priest of Nutella



A buckuht n a hooze! -Valura

Posted: 6th Mar 2007
Wow... I'm pretty speechless, it's really, really blatantly awful when you put it into medical perspective like that.

I agree about your comment on the limits of education too, some people are just not fit to be parents and no amount of education will change some people's behaviour.

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Take me disappearing through the smoke rings of my mind....

Bob Dylan

Posted: 7th Mar 2007
Brings light to how neglect is seen as abuse

Spanner i don't think it was aimed at anyone, just illustrating how even though they need educating some times its not only too late but pointless. the "it did me no harm" and "i can feed my kids what ever i want" attitude is far too common. plus you have to take into consideration the parents own experiances, (and yes i know generalising isn't the ideal thing to do) if as a child a parent didn't have good experainces with education/authority figures, school, growing up etc they are more than likely as a parent not listen to the advice offerd and give in to their childs wants for an easier life. its alot harder to give in to a child having a tantrum than it is to walk away and leave them to calm down.

Doc- that is shocking, i am glad that we don't have the same attitude in this country, well not from any of my experiances anyway. i don't know how you cope i admire not only you but every one in your profesion.

*goes and has more coffee before the school run.

Life's too short to worry about where you put your marshmallows

Posted: 8th Mar 2007

 Written by: Spanner



Doc, I really hope that post wasn't directed at me.

It did seem as if it was as you included my mention of "education" a lot: quite sarcastically, I thought.

It wasn't.

-Mike

Certified Mad Doctor and HoP High Priest of Nutella



A buckuht n a hooze! -Valura