Origanalist
01-05-2014, 06:48 PM
Social workers take children from families who overfeed them
OBESE children have been taken from their families by social workers because of fears that overfeeding was wrecking their health.
One child had a BMI measurement of 35, which for a six-foot man would mean weighing 19st.
Britain's obesity epidemic, which sees NHS hospitals dealing with 1,000 cases every day, is a reversal of the traditional problem when children were undernourished. Increasingly social workers find youngsters being fed a high-fat, sugary diet, which can be just as bad for their health.
The phenomenon is known as "killing with kindness" because the child craves the unhealthy food and a loving parent feels unable to say no.
Professionals say they have to make complex decisions in care proceedings and a family's gross over-eating can be one of the factors that leads to them losing their children.
A Sunday Express survey of councils found that in the past year five children were taken from their families for that reason: two in Wake-field, West Yorkshire, one in Oxfordshire, one in Salford and one in Hounslow, London.
The previous 12 months saw five similar cases in Sheffield, Portsmouth, Lincolnshire, Slough and Harrow, London.
A social worker said: "Only in extreme cases would we take a child into care just because of their weight as we would seek to work with the family to improve their eating habits."
Ex-Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson warned in 2006 that health chiefs would look at removing children from their families if they became super-sized, risking their health.
The first reported case took place in 2007 when an eight-year-old girl from Cumbria, who had to wear size 16 clothes, was taken into care weighing 10st.
Figures from hospitals show a 10-fold increase in obesity-related cases in the past 10 years
The nation's obesity problems have also been uncovered in figures from hospitals in England showing there were 356,072 individual care sessions last year where the patient was deemed to be suffering from obesity or an illness or injury that could have been brought on by being too fat.
It is the first time the NHS has released the statistics in this way and shows how the nation's bulging waistlines are putting extra stress on hospitals' limited resources.
continued at...http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/450907/Social-workers-take-children-from-families-who-overfeed-them
OBESE children have been taken from their families by social workers because of fears that overfeeding was wrecking their health.
One child had a BMI measurement of 35, which for a six-foot man would mean weighing 19st.
Britain's obesity epidemic, which sees NHS hospitals dealing with 1,000 cases every day, is a reversal of the traditional problem when children were undernourished. Increasingly social workers find youngsters being fed a high-fat, sugary diet, which can be just as bad for their health.
The phenomenon is known as "killing with kindness" because the child craves the unhealthy food and a loving parent feels unable to say no.
Professionals say they have to make complex decisions in care proceedings and a family's gross over-eating can be one of the factors that leads to them losing their children.
A Sunday Express survey of councils found that in the past year five children were taken from their families for that reason: two in Wake-field, West Yorkshire, one in Oxfordshire, one in Salford and one in Hounslow, London.
The previous 12 months saw five similar cases in Sheffield, Portsmouth, Lincolnshire, Slough and Harrow, London.
A social worker said: "Only in extreme cases would we take a child into care just because of their weight as we would seek to work with the family to improve their eating habits."
Ex-Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson warned in 2006 that health chiefs would look at removing children from their families if they became super-sized, risking their health.
The first reported case took place in 2007 when an eight-year-old girl from Cumbria, who had to wear size 16 clothes, was taken into care weighing 10st.
Figures from hospitals show a 10-fold increase in obesity-related cases in the past 10 years
The nation's obesity problems have also been uncovered in figures from hospitals in England showing there were 356,072 individual care sessions last year where the patient was deemed to be suffering from obesity or an illness or injury that could have been brought on by being too fat.
It is the first time the NHS has released the statistics in this way and shows how the nation's bulging waistlines are putting extra stress on hospitals' limited resources.
continued at...http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/450907/Social-workers-take-children-from-families-who-overfeed-them