Boy may be taken from parents for being overweight

by Kristin Darguzas (Subscribe to Kristin Darguzas's posts) Feb 26th 2007 3:00PM

Categories: Health & Safety, Eating & Nutrition, Media

An 8 year old boy might be taken away from his parents for being grossly overweight.

Connor McCreaddie weighs 196 pounds and has broken four beds and five bicycles. Social services has intervened as part of a landmark case in England's fight against childhood obesity.

Connor's Mother explains her son's inability to eat healthily as due to a "family intolerance to fruit or vegetables." Is that even possible?

The country's National Health Service maintains that removing the boy from his home is a last resort, as they have unsuccessfully made attempts to arrange for visits for Connor to nutritionists, school nurses, and social workers to address his diet -- but all appointments have been missed. They claim that Connor's family is essentially abusing him by not ensuring a healthy diet, noting that abuse is "not just about hitting your children or sexually abusing them, it is also about neglect."

I am not sure what to think. On one hand, I imagine Connor has enough challenges at school and in his social life, being that overweight, and removing him from his home would be incredibly traumatizing to a young boy. On the other hand, I do believe that parents have a responsibility to ensure their children are healthy.

What do you think?

Source

Comments (13)

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

SKL 2-26-2007 @ 3:42PM

I'd have to look at the overall situation. If he has a loving home, and the only issue is his nutrition, then the harm of taking him away from his parents would be worse than the benefit.

That said, there should probably be some sort of citation or other punishment if the parents are really not even trying to help the child. A fine or mandatory weekly visits by a social worker might do the trick.

The real question here isn't about whether the parents deserve to be punished, but what would be best for their son. Disruption of the child's life as a punishment for his overweight, followed by a rigorous weight loss program that is bound to feel like more torture, hardly seems to be best for the child.

Furthermore, it seems that as soon as you tell a young child that he's overweight, his weight problem becomes all the more insurmountable, because he's thinking about what he can & can't eat all the time.

Meghan 2-26-2007 @ 3:54PM

I have to agree with SKL. Is his weight the only issue? Because if it is, it seems to me like it's going to be a lot worse for him to be separated from a loving him than it is for him to be fat.

Also, I'd like to know where the lines for this sort of thing will be drawn. What about the parents of anorexic children? Will their kids be taken away because their diets are clearly lacking?

You only have so much control over what your children eat or don't eat -- short of holding them down and force-feeding them veg, what are you going to do? Not keep "it" in the house, sure, but then are you not going to keep around butter? What about chocolate powder or sugar, do you stop stocking those, too? It's not that hard for an eight year old to come up with the bit of money that it costs them to buy their own sweets or snacks, and anything can be unhealthy if prepared the wrong way or eaten in mass quantities.

I feel bad for the poor boy -- his life probably isn't any picnic as it is, and I can't imagine that it will be better after all this, regardless of how it turns out.

d 2-26-2007 @ 5:40PM

I agree with England to remove the boy. I mean sounds like Social Services has worked with family for awhile and they are not following through on what they need to do for him, mandating weekly visits with a social worker are not going to do anything except waste the family and the SW time since they aren't willing to change.

I think 1st the agency should work with the family for say a period of 3 months, get them to sign a contract with expectations, if no change occurs during that time, then take him away. But it sounds like that may have already occured soooo.....

Once the child is in foster care, should he show major changes in short time period, it will "prove" the neglect from the parents.

As a general rule at least in Ontario, there is a mandate for child protection agency to seek out alternative style placements for child other than foster care and assess all reasonable plans that are presented. I think that in this case, a caring relative: Aunt, Grandmother, Cousin or even Family Friend may be able to meet this child's needs and stop him from being a ward of the state.

These are tricky cases since the main things is neglect. I assume if the family can't eat vegetables, the child is very overwieght there are other issues going on in the family including maybe proverty, lack of developmental knowledge of children, parents mental health issues, family conflict, development mental delay of caregiver, permissive parenting and lack of child management knowledge since child eats everything.

emjaybee 2-26-2007 @ 4:16PM

A child that grossly overweight has either a medical condition (there are some that create insatiable hunger, and some that prevent weight loss) or is being neglected/abused and allowed to overeat/fed very unhealthily.

The risks to his health are as severe as if he were being starved to death; and no one would quibble if he were taken away for that, would they?

His parents refuse to have him looked at by a doctor; they refuse to meet with anyone who could help him. But if he's not helped, he will die early and have many health problems in the meantime. That is abuse/severe neglect, no matter how you look at it. Just the same as if they were refusing to allow him to take life-saving medication.

I'm not big on taking kids away from their parents, for lots of reasons, but if the alternative is to let the child be crippled and die young, then yes, they should place him with foster parents and seek treatment for him.

I'm not sure how many children develop anorexia in abusive situations--it seems to be more of a mental health issue than a physical one, usually with well-off families. But if a child were starving herself to death (or cutting herself, or otherwise showing signs of pain and mental illness) and the parents refused to lift a finger to help her...well, yes. I would say that child was being neglected.

Amanda 2-26-2007 @ 4:20PM

Shame on those parents for allowing him to get to that condition! he probably has diabetes and an enlarged heart now among God only knows how many other ailments. I cannot even imagine a child that young being that big!
I agree that it is tragic and traumatizing for a child to have to be removed from their home but I'm sure Social Services is doing all they can to protect the poor child and prevent him from being removed from the home.
These parents obviously do not care about the health of their child. I have to agree that allowing this to happen to your child is just as terrible as allowing them to be physically or sexually abused.
I just can't say it enough...SHAME ON THEM!

SKL 2-26-2007 @ 6:46PM

So is the British social service going to do a sweep of all British homes and find all the kids over a certain BMI, give their parents three months to get them skinny, and take them away if they are still fat? Where are they gonna put all these kids and who is gonna pay for them? Or are they gonna force all the parents of high-BMI kids to prepare and submit a list of everything their kids ate all day? Or are they gonna come over at dinner time to make sure the kids eat more veggies and less potatoes? What about other kids who don't eat enough veggies but haven't quite reached that BMI yet? What about parents who are ignorant about nutrition but their kid isn't fat yet? Where does this end?

There are lots of factors that cause severe obesity. If not eating fruit and veggies really caused obesity across the board, there would be a lot more fat kids and adults. This kid probably has a combination of inherited / medical issues, activity issues, diet/cultural issues, educational issues, and self-esteem issues. Some of us would like to blame all that on the parents, but that's a very simplistic view in my opinion.

For a normal child, most families would not consider it abuse or neglect to allow a child to eat when they are hungry. Ill-advised, yes, but not illegal. I would say at least half of families pretty much let their kids eat as much as they want, and are lucky enough that their kids don't balloon out due to their innate physical make-up. It's not fair to break up this family just because the boy is predisposed to be heavier.

If the social workers really care about this kid, they will keep working with the parents to find a solution. Maybe meet them on their own turf instead of forcing them to take their kid to a nutritionist, etc. (I had a chubby sister and a brother who would gag at the thought of anything green. My parents never went to a nutritionist, and I'm pretty sure they would really resent a social worker's demand that they do so. They were working on the problem in the best way they knew, but my sister still ended up overweight. I guess the Brits believe both of my sibs would have been better off in a foster home.)

Like I said, OK to punish and educate the parents, not OK to punish the child.

CLM 2-26-2007 @ 7:06PM

If the parents have missed every meeting and have ignored every attempt to help the child lose weight (or at least eat better), then those parents are not acting in the best interest of the child. I would be interested to know whether the parents are also obese? It may be a case of denial on the parents part - if their child is morbidly obese, then they might have to face the fact that they are too. If the parents won't cooperate, what is the state's alternative to removing the child from the home?

stace 2-26-2007 @ 7:03PM

We have a friend who is a foster parent. One of her current foster kids came to her overweight, not as bad as this boy. My friend she eats very healthy so do her kids. This foster kid has lost weight, not by going on a diet, just by healthy eating and having the kids go out and play(not a lot of TV).
BTW, this kid is in the system for other issues, not weight.

SKL 2-27-2007 @ 1:40AM

I saw a picture of the boy. He is obese, but I am sure he's not the most obese kid in Britain. He's very tall for his age, which would explain why his weight is so high for his weight.

And it does sound like the mother is trying to get him to eat less, though without much success. And the mother is not obese.

Either this kid is being unfairly targeted, or this is the beginning of a huge mess in Britain.

Gry 2-27-2007 @ 2:44AM

I read the article and I watched the video where his mum is talking about the issue and to me it's pretty clear that she is just very uneducated about nutrition. She thinks that because he is obese he can't be undernourished, wich is false, and that she can't give him healthy food (fruit and veggies) because he refuses to eat it and he would starve, so she gives him processed foods instead.

What really made me sad are these lines from the article: "He has difficulty dressing and washing himself, misses school regularly because of poor health and is a target for bullies."

The article also says: "Ms McKeown denied she is neglecting her son, and said he would be "skinny" if she had been." So she is overweight, if not obese.

No 8 year old should have to deal with those kinds of things. Of course taking him away from his home should be the very last resort, but clearly something needs to be done. She says she can probably get him to lose weight if she just gets a little help, and says in the article that they have seen numerous doctors but that no one actually stepped in to offer help - and I wonder what kind of help she is looking for, when the solution is to get him on a better diet, which she refuses to do.

It sounds to me like she is fishing for a quick fix that simply doesn't exists. Diet pills or stomach surgery or what have you.

Maybe a first step would be to get this woman to take nutrition/health classes, but if she won't go, then what?

Reader 2-27-2007 @ 7:19AM

If you were to cause that kid those health problems through any physical means, you'd be in jail for assault.

india 2-27-2007 @ 8:26AM

actually as strange as it sounds you can have an intolerance to fruit and vegetables my husband throws up anytime either 1 hits his mouth.

Ann Adams 2-27-2007 @ 11:18AM

That story made it to CNN this morning. I'm still not sure removing him is the answer but something should be done.

They showed a typical day's intake. Almost entirely fast food with snacks every 20 minutes in between.

If CNN can be believed, those parents will kill their child with kindness. I'm much more in favor of education than punishment if it's possible.

If that doesn't work (and it evidently hasn't so far), England might have no choice but to step in and try to save the child.

How To Submit Photos:
If you'd like your children (any age will do!) featured on ParentDish, upload photos into the ParentDish Flickr Pool. Be sure to read our main Flickr page for more information.