Obesity ‘should be grounds for having a child taken into care’

‘Our study offers a unique insight into current multiagency practice on child obesity and child protection’

ALLOWING your child to become obese should be grounds for having them taken into care, social workers believe.

More than half of child protection and obesity services professionals believe a minor’s weight should be taken into account when deciding if they should be removed from their parents, according to a new study.

The researchers interviewed 23 people working in these sectors at a local authority in the North of England.

They found that 10 participants believed that child obesity is a protection issue which could amount to “significant harm” and warrant intervention, with a further three agreeing if obesity was also associated with wider concerns about neglect.

Obesity was more likely to be seen as a child protection issue when families did not engage with the support offered and make lifestyle changes.

The findings were published in the

British Journal of Social Work and presented at The European and International Congress on Obesity this week.

Dr Peter Nelson from Sheffield Hallam University, who led the research, said: “Our study offers a unique insight into current multi-agency practice on child obesity and child protection.

“We’re seeing that thresholds do not operate simply as a line to be crossed for a referral to be accepted by social services, but they are nuanced and complex, with personal values and beliefs about obesity influencing individual decision making, and different agency thresholds.”

A quarter of all children in England are obese when they leave primary school. As well as experiencing low self-esteem and bullying, they are also at risk of serious long-term health problems, including type 2 diabetes, heart problems and cancer.

Childhood obesity is incorporated in some multi-agency child protection procedures in the UK, but not others.