In agreement here.

The government constantly tells us what is healthy and what isn't, keeping us up to date on new developments. It's a parent's responsibility to take the education the government provides and put it into practice.

Totally the parents fault.

To allow a 3 year old to get to 6 stone (~3 times what they should be) is irresponsible and borders on negligence.

What the hell is this quote all about:
"Some may say the parents are responsible, but if a child is demanding food it can be very difficult to refuse it."

If my kids want something that I don't want them to have I tell them no. If they're demanding food 'cos they're hungry between meals they get fruit or yogurt. If they don't want those choices they're obviously not starving so they go without.

They like going to McDs or KFC and we will go once a week or so 'cos I believe we all should have some 'naughty food' every now and then (I go *all* the time for myself ). They love pizza so I make it at home. You'll be amazed at the amount of veggies you can blend up to make a pizza topping without the child knowing.

It's unbeliveable how a child was allowed to get that fat

I'd just typed out a topic starter related to this... so i might as well put it here and introduce a couple of other issues to the discussion...

Lineker refuses to drop crisp deal

Good on Gary I say. Adverts for Crisps and McDonalds and Chocolate aren't whats causing this nations obesity problem. Everyone knows that Crisps and takeaways and sweets are bad for you if you eat too much of them, no adverts are going to convince us otherwise.

Its the adverts for products like Sunny Delight and Fruit Winders and Cheese Strings that are part of the problem. Food that contain tonnes of sugar or have virtually no nutritional value hiding under the guise of being full of vitamins or real fruit or calcium. Convincing kids (and their parents) that if you have these it might be okay to forgo real fruit and cheese products.

I know that obesity is a massive problem in this country and that something must be done about it. The fact that this three year old girl died because she was obese is proof of that, but I also see this case as proof that parents need to be educated about the foods they give their children and in turn children educated about the importance of good nutrition. The traffic light system that Tesco are looking at implementing seems a good place to start.

In this particular case it all rests with the parents. I hadn't realised that she'd been allowed to get to 6 stone tho

(Edited by Sydney 27/05/2004 15:26)

Totally the parents fault my mum and dad let me have chocolate and stuff but not alot and even if the food i was eating wasn't constantly fruit and veg and stuff i was always out playing and they had to force me to sit still long enough for my food to digest so i never put weight on!

T's right kids should have 'naughty food' sometimes! we had McDs for lunch on a Sunday when I was a kid and that was it. It was VERY rare we ever went more than that even though its literally just down the road from my house. and there are a million ways to get them eating good stuff (even if it involves tricking them lol) so theres no excuse. and as for;

---

"Some may say the parents are responsible, but if a child is demanding food it can be very difficult to refuse it."

---

Give them fruit then, or if you cant manage to say no to a three year old child there's not much down for you really! How can they have not done something before she reached 6stone???!!!! Ugh people frighten me.

Yup, completely down to the parent.

---

by Sydney

Lineker refuses to drop crisp deal

Good on Gary I say. Adverts for Crisps and McDonalds and Chocolate aren't whats causing this nations obesity problem. Everyone knows that Crisps and takeaways and sweets are bad for you if you eat too much of them, no adverts are going to convince us otherwise.

---

Crisps have quite a bit of nutrition in them its a shame about the fat. And since when is Gary Lineker going to sell crisps to kids anyway hes not really a role model to kids anymore. Give them a tastier orange juice instead of sunny delight.

To be honest Its entirely the the girls parents fault, at the age of 3 the child is going to rely on their parents for all their food intake.

Because i've had alot of problems to do with food in my life, when I read things like this it makes me cry.

How could someone seriously do that to their children? If they supposedly love their children so much that they can't say no, then how can they not notice that their child is severely ill?

Totally the parents fault. And the sad thing is, if a child is bought up with these eating habits, they're only going to pass it on to a future generation.

I get really angry about things like this, not helped by the fact that today my mate fainted at school and had some kind of fit, and she got taken away in an ambulance. They think it's something to do with her blood sugar levels, and at school we all well know she only eats sweets and bacon rolls.

Spending a bit time in Germany over the past few years has made me realise how greedy this country is, because over there there is hardly any junk food, and it's definately not as easy to get hold of.

I just hope it's not too late to re-educate people

Crazy. Hope the parents can be charged, at the very least, with neglect, or better yet manslaughter. It's clearly their fault, although it could certainly be argued the authories shoulder some of the blame for not sending in the child protection team in time.

I'm absolutely amazed that this has happened.

It's totally the parents fault - how on earth could they not see their child was overweight? Georgia is the same age - she's 3, but like Teresa, I give her as many healthy options as I can in between mealtimes. She does eat chocolate but not a great deal and she eats sweets very rarely.

Of course you can stand up to a three year old - ok so there is a battle of wills and sometimes it is easier to give in for a quieter life, but NOT when it comes to health issues.

Like Teresa said - if your child says "no" to certain options - eg fruit or yoghurt etc then they're obviously not that hungry......

Reminds me of the parents that gave their child salt in it's food..........

---

by Byron
although it could certainly be argued the authories shoulder some of the blame for not sending in the child protection team in time.

---

Thats assuming the authorties even knew, this is a 3 year old child who may not have seen a doctor until it was too late.

---

by JtB
Thats assuming the authorties even knew, this is a 3 year old child who may not have seen a doctor until it was too late.

---

Agreed - this feeds into a wider problem of cutbacks etc. in the health and social services. I haven't heard of health visitors and district nurse-type-people for a very long time now, not since my youngest bro was born (16 years ago, eep, where did the time go!? ) Whilst governments have talked about joined-up thinking, joined up services etc, it's just been cutting back and outsourcing, and the left hand no longer knows what the right is doing. A health visitor might possibly have identified the problem, helped educate the parents as to what they should or could be doing, and if nothing happened, brought social services in or something.
It's all very scary...

And from yesterday's news reports... perhaps we were being too hasty in our condemnation...
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3789357.stm

---

by Bee
And from yesterday's news reports... perhaps we were being too hasty in our condemnation...
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3789357.stm

---

I don't think it does completely absolve the parents of responsibility. All it says it that there was a reason that the child was hungry all the time - the parents still had to feed her, and could soon see from her size that she obviously didn't require so much food. At that point she should have been taken to a doctor.

---

The condition could have been treated but doctors only found out after she died.

---

True genes account for a lot of things but there is also something called nurture in the whole "nature - nurture" discussion.

But if your kid is constantly hungry and you feed it you are only giving into the whole problem instead of actually solving it.

They should have noticed that a kid that is always hungry and getting so fat isn't normal. Sure it's hard to not feed a child when it's really really hungry (and this kid apparently always was) but that still doesn't strip them from their responsibilities.

In any case they should have sought medical help for the kid for it being so fat and hopefully than the would have spotted that this kid had a genetic problem. Sure you can't blame the parents for not knowing that the kid had a genetic problem but they should have seen that the symphomes it was displaying weren't directly normal?!?

---

by Chambler
In any case they should have sought medical help for the kid for it being so fat and hopefully than the would have spotted that this kid had a genetic problem. Sure you can't blame the parents for not knowing that the kid had a genetic problem but they should have seen that the symphomes it was displaying weren't directly normal?!?

---

I'm going to have to take issue with this. Both my brothers have been very ill very early on in their lives - my mother, noticing that something was amiss, took them to the doctors'. A lot. And the consultant's. And every manner of place, where she was told that she was just being silly, was wasting their time, what did she want - a label? Was slagged off as an over-anxious parent, and all manner of things. Only after fighting for years and years did she manage to get any sort of assessment for them, let alone treatment - and in one case, the condition was life-threatening. I'm afraid that I don't have faith in the medical profession not to have told the parents that they were just being over-anxious parents, all children eat a lot, they're just growing and so forth. The fact that the girl died in hospital shows that they were at the least attempting to do something. A genetic abnormality, I suspect, is not something that most doctors will have been able to pick up straight away, and she will have gone through years of being passed from specialist to specialist before anything will have been diagnosed as well. I'm afraid it just isn't as simple as looking at the child, saying "she's abnormally hungry" and then thinking "I know, she has a genetic abnormality."

---

by Bee
I'm afraid it just isn't as simple as looking at the child, saying "she's abnormally hungry" and then thinking "I know, she has a genetic abnormality."

---

If you look at the weight of the 3 year old (38kg's) it was clearly obese for a little while before it died. And yes a child grows.... Normally if you drag your kid to your gp he / she would check the health of the child (as a kid this heavy really has a health risk) and you do blood works to check for your general problems (you could find that in a blood sample I guess). After that they would advice a dietisian or something and the kid and it's health would be closely monitored (check up by gp and dietisian every xx weeks). If after xx time the diet clearly didn't have the effect they where aiming for and everything is still going by the book than you start looking for less obvious reasons. Sure it's not like looking at a kid and you can see it has a genetic abnormality and it's not the most common reason. But it would atleast have kept the kid alive longer for them to find the cause. As said it's nature nurture. The parents aren't home free because the kid had a genetic disorder... they did still feed it all the food.

---

The fact that the girl died in hospital shows that they were at the least attempting to do something.

---

Uhmm I didn't read it actually said that. Just that other kids where in hospital and that they knew of other cases. But than again I'm a dyslexic and English isn't my first language

A death of a 3 year old with a weight of 38kg's most likely isn't due natural causes (as in old age) so the kid would basically be checked over and tested in a hospital etc.

I'm not saying that in every case the medical world is always right or even do the right thing as was pretty much the case with your bro's. It's still praticed by humans.