Parents may be guilty of neglect

London: Parents who fail to help an obese child eat and exercise properly, ignoring all advice and guidance, could be guilty of neglect, child health experts say.

Dr Russell Viner and colleagues from the UCL Institute of Child Health in London said that the weight of a child by itself was not a reason for child protection staff to get involved.

But in an article published online yesterday by the British Medical Journal, they suggested that may be appropriate to consider the child protection register if parents consistently failed to change the family's lifestyle and not engage with outside help.

"Parental failure to provide their children with adequate treatment for a chronic illness (asthma, diabetes, epilepsy) is a well accepted reason for a child protection registration for neglect," they wrote.

"We suggest that childhood obesity becomes a child protection concern when parents behave in a way that actively promotes treatment failure in a child who is at serious risk from obesity and when the parents or carers understand what is required, and are helped to engage with the treatment programme."

That might involve failing to keep appointments or get involved with health care staff or other professionals who wanted to help the child, they wrote.

It could also include "actively subverting weight-management initiatives".

Viner said it was difficult to establish when obesity became neglect and an issue for child protection because the pressure on everyone to eat too much and exercise too little was so powerful.

These factors were so strong that "for some parents, it is very difficult to stop their child gaining weight", Dr Viner wrote.

He also pointed to the strong associations between food, feeding, caring and love.

Dr Viner and his colleagues said they set out to review the evidence for any link between childhood obesity and neglect because there were no official guidelines for professionals.