Parents under threat of enforced care order

[warrenpenalver]

This is the mother talking about her children...

 

...who weigh...

 

the 12-year-old boy, who weighs 16 stone, and two of his sisters, aged 11 and three, who weigh 12st and 4st respectively.

 

This is the attitude I find appalling: absolutely no acceptance of any parental responsibility! Arrgghhhhh!

Whooaaa 12 years old and weighs 16 stone!!! I weigh 16 stone and am overwieght as anyone who met me at grenwich will know so he must be morbidly obese!!! Theres a difference between letting your kids get overwieght and so obese they are going to die!!

[darky]

See that is the problem. It is not puppy fat. My 9yr old weighs a little over what that 3 yr old weighs, and the 11yr old is my weight. My 11 yr old weighs just over 5st. It is totally irresponsable to allow a child to weigh over twice what they should, worse than that, dismiss it down to puppy fat.

[Karen A]

i think the parenting ,food thing is a intresting topic.i have two kids with food issues in that they dont eat enough and i constantly struggle to get them to eat enough i worry and fret.i was diagnosed last year type 2 so i have to be on a carb free diet so my insulin works better im not obese im just unlucky in that i have the type 2 gene my granny had diabetes and a young woman.my hubby is also on a special diet..i have had to take everyone in our homes diet and individually sort us out.and it takes brain power and is tricky but not impossible....these people can be taught to feed there kids appropriately and with support will do so..the most important thing is excercise...some people just dont get that letting our kids become obese is not only poor parenting it is also child abuse.the ss understand that these kids will be having a awful time from there peers because of there size..and it is the parents responibility to sort it out..everything is available from the health visitor and gp...love noogsy

 

Hi noogsy.I think perhaps Health Visitors and GPs are less streched in Scotland.

I don't think ''everything is available'' fits well in inner London.

Unless a child is under three and considered at risk it is difficult to speak to a Health Visitor except for 5 minutes at immunisation appointments.

GPs generally work extremely hard but certainly cannot offer everything they would like to.

[chill2computer]

As far as I am concerned my son is over weight and I have difficulty finding trousers to fit him. I have approached CAMHS over this possibility however get the same answer? your son is not over weight?

I insisted I have an appointment so he could be weighed and then they could have the correct information. The chart showed my son was over weight and the line was above the safety line. I could not believe that this stupid person sat there and told me the charts are so out of date on the NHS therefore she could not go by this information as children are taller than they were in 1960. If you tried to put on a piece of adult clothing that was made one hundred years ago, it would fit a child by the modern standards. This was the excuses that was used, I call it lame.

 

I insisted I have an appointment to see a dietician so I could help my son now before it gets out of hand. I was offered an appointment with her and contacted them before hand to explain my son has AS so charts would be helpful, when I arrived to this appointment she did not take my phone call seriously thus unprepared when we arrived. I have been waiting a year for the next appointment as every time I get offered one I get a phone call from the department to reschedule. I have needed to go in-depth of all possibilities of how a child can become over weight when food and exercise are not the issue.

 

I am over weight myself not because I over eat but because I am on steroids three times a day. Not sure if I am going to get into trouble for this but the Asthma medication is steroids. Every one hears the same rubbish that the Asthma medication will not make you put on weight it is designed in a different way. I am not telling any one to stop taking there Asthma medication because you needs this med to prevent an Asthma attack. My son is also on the Asthma medication and feel it has contributed to the over weight problem, my son needs this medication thus he needs to continue taking it. My son?s chest is double that of a normal child because his lungs grow larger to compensate for the lack of oxygen.

 

The situation has got out of hand because my son was told by a child? he cannot run fast because he is too fat? He now throws up every time he eats.

 

Parents have shouted abuse at me and I find that are too ignorant to see past the black and white. People tend to pick up on the media and when they see an over weight child accuse the parent of cruelty and do not stop to think or care if there are other reasons behind it.

 

I apologise if this post upsets any one.

[darky]

It is very easy to make genralisations on these issues. I really feel for you having to go through the nasty ignorant comments from ppeople. There is no doubt that there are cases of over weight or obsesity that are NOT caused by over eating, junk food or lack of exercise. I hope this topic did not make you feel bad. It sounds as if you are doing everything you can to help your son, and that is all anyone can do, and shows a responsable parent. The story in this topic is, in my opinion nothing at all like your situation. The parent in this story dismisses 12st on an 11yr old as puppy fat, there has not been, as far as I can tell, any medical reason the children in this story which could explain such exessive weight. I think your comments make an very interesting point in this discussion. So I can't see why it would upset anyone. <'>

[darky]

Oh and I meant to say, that is no different to people making generalisations on children with ASD, and assuming the behavior they might be witnessing is down to poor parenting. <'>

[Enid]

Oh and I meant to say, that is no different to people making generalisations on children with ASD, and assuming the behavior they might be witnessing is down to poor parenting. <'>

 

 

Amen to that <'> Enid

[pookie170]

My AS son literally CANNOT eat some foods. Beef is one of them-no matter how I cook it, or try to disguise it, if it makes it to his mouth then he WILL vomit. Instantaneously. He can't even put into words how disgusting it tastes and feels to him. 5 years ago, so very many other foods were on that list, but as he's aged he has been able to tolerate a more varied diet. I actually got a most severe and insulting dressing down from a locum doc who noticed Cal was slightly overweight and wasn't getting all that he needed from his diet- even though I had already got vitamin drops from our usual, supportive doc and was trying very hard to change his diet. But when your son will only eat bread and plain pasta in any quantity, and you don't have a safe area to let him out to play in, its terribly difficult. So I, like everyone else here, I think, completely understand the difficulties some parents face with regards to their child's diet-whether that child is NT or on the spectrum.

 

That said, I have dealt with so many kids in my time who were morbidly obese, and whose parents would not recognise the problem or take responsibility for it. One child was 4 years old, and wearing size 14 womens clothes as these were what fitted her'waist'. My colleagues and I could not let this child access some of the activities on offer because her size gave her very limited mobility, and we could not lift her safely. Her mother burst in one day, terribly angry because the school nurse had spoken to her about her daughters weight. This nurse had said that she wanted the mother to let her refer the family to a dietician, and when the mother refused, the nurse had warned her that she might have to go to Social Services. The mother relayed this to my colleague, and said, 'Well what do YOU think of that?!! She's NOT obese!!' My colleague was honest, and said that she did feel the child was unacceptably overweight, and asked the mother to come and observe her daughter as she went about her play. To say that the mum was shocked at how her daughter s size affected her was an understatement. She did eventually access help, and we were thrilled to see a much slimmer child a year later. But not as thrilled as the child was to be able to do what everyone else was doing.

 

Some of these parents are lacking in knowledge of good diets, how to encourage healthy eating or even how to prepare healthy meals. They aren't being cruel to their kids, and eat the same as their children do. Some other parents should have known better, but used foods as a bargaining tool and reward to the extent that their child's size became an issue, but this doesn't happen overnight so the problem was not as apparent to them as it was to outsiders. Lack of knowledge parenting skills etc can all be changed for the better, it takes time but is worthwhile. I have empathy for how difficult food issues can be, hand on heart, and realise that there's no quick fix-or even a slow one- for some people.

 

It was those parents who would not accept there was a problem or try to do so that truly angered me.....