Bman
03-07-2007, 11:11 AM
Chicago Sun Times
March 2, 2007 Friday
Final Edition
Parental guidance suggested?: British boy three times normal size brings home problem of obesity in kids and mom and dad's degree of responsibility
Leslie Baldacci, The Chicago Sun-Times
In Chicago, one of the world's fattest cities, doctors and child welfare officials have handled cases similar to this week's drama around an English boy so overweight that authorities investigated his mother for possible abuse or neglect. Authorities in England threatened to take custody of 8-year-old Connor McCreaddie, who at 218 pounds is three times the size of an average child his age. Connor was allowed to remain with his mother after she entered into a formal agreement with the Local Safeguarding Children Board.
"Yes, we have had [similar reports] at some point," said Kendall Marlowe, deputy director for communications for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. "Situations such as this one are not common, but we're not saying it never happens. We do receive and investigate allegations of medical neglect, which can include issues of nutrition as well as other issues of providing proper medical care."
Reports to DCFS are based on actual harm or the risk of harm to a child. In Great Britain, the Children Act places a duty on the local authority to conduct an inquiry if it has ''reasonable cause to suspect that a child ... in their area is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm.''
Marlowe said DCFS "would typically seek to provide services and service links to intact families to help safeguard the child and strengthen the family's capacity to successfully care for their own children." That is what happened in Connor's case.
At a time when 17 percent of American children and half the adult population is overweight, the case spotlights the issue of parental responsibility for children's weight. The number of overweight children has tripled in the past 30 years, placing them at increased risk for diabetes, skeletal disorders and heart disease. While some children "grow into" their baby fat, many become fat adults.
"I've seen children that young even heavier, and I am not happy with the approach of thinking of this as primarily parental neglect because there are contributors to childhood [obesity] at every level," said Dr. Katherine Kaufer Christoffel, director of Children's Memorial Hospital's Center for Obesity Management and Prevention. "To pick out the family component as the decisive one seems grossly unfair and inaccurate."
In up to 90 percent of cases, "parents of most overweight children do not realize they are overweight," Christoffel said. "Their eyes are not calibrated that way."
But when parents refuse to accept child obesity as a health problem, that's "very worrisome," Christoffel said. "If the doctors say your child has medical problems because he is overweight, and the family says, 'Oh, no, we're all like that and we're not going to talk to you about it,' then your ears perk up."
Children with a body mass index in the 85th to 95th percentile have an increased risk of staying obese and developing health problems. Doctors also worry about children who gain weight so quickly that they cross percentiles.
If parents are unwilling to make changes, or carry through with agreed-upon changes and the child's condition worsens, "then I'd have to say this is medical neglect," Christoffel said.
Parenting has "a huge impact, not only for addressing obesity but preventing it," said Julie Germann, a psychologist and director of the FitMatters Weight Control Program at LaRabida Children's Hospital. "I tell families, just as you teach values to your kids about being a good, decent human being, you teach them values about how they take care of themselves. What we see across the board is that parents have gotten into the same habits as the rest of American society: big portions, convenience foods, video games in the house, being able to afford an extra TV so the kid has one in the bedroom."
FitMatters serves children 8 and older and their families.
"You can't take every child who's overweight out of their homes -- that's a third of the population and it's not going to solve the problem anyway," Germann said. "Get involved with services that teach what are the healthy things to do, how to change habits slowly and gradually. In American society, and spreading all over the world, it is so easy to be unhealthy and so difficult and requires so much planning and forethought to do the healthy things: to pack a lunch, to plan a grocery list, to set aside time to exercise."
Connor came to the attention of child protection officials after his mother allowed a TV news crew to film his day-to-day life for a month. Sky TV showed footage of Connor's mother serving him meals of french fries, meat and buttered bread.
''He'll hover around the kitchen for food. He'll continually go in the fridge,'' Nicola McKeown said of her son. ''I just keep telling him to get out of the fridge, wait until meal times and stuff. But at the end of the day, he was born hungry. He has always been hungry.''
''Bacon. Mmmm... That's my favorite. Um ... chicken, steak, sausage,'' the boy told the camera.
lbaldacci@suntimes.com
HUGGABLE, FAT, OBESE? CHECK YOUR MASS
How fat is too fat? Calculate your body mass online. It only takes a few seconds to determine your body mass index, the number used by doctors and researchers to tell whether someone's normal, overweight or obese.
Children and teens have their own calculator because the amount of body fat considered healthy for kids changes with age, sometimes month to month.
To calculate your body mass index online, Google "BMI calculator." The BMI calculator on the Centers for Disease Control Web site (www.cdc.gov) has pages of information regarding children and teens.
Body Mass Index is a ratio of height and weight. An adult with a body mass index between 25 and 30 is considered overweight; above 30, obese. Virtually everyone who registers an obesity-level body mass index over 30 has too much fat and faces a higher risk of heart attack, stroke, diabetes, arthritis and some cancers, health officials say.
A child with a body mass index in the 85th percentile is at increased risk of staying obese, and a 95th percentile rating is "worrisome," said Dr. Katherine Kaufer Christoffel, director of the Center for Obesity Management and Prevention at Children's Memorial Hospital. An 8-year-old boy who is 4-foot-8 and weighs 80 pounds is in the 85th percentile with a body mass index of 17.9. When the British boy's weight, 218 pounds, was entered with [a posited] height of 5 feet, the calculator didn't work because the information entered was "outside the range of expected values."
March 2, 2007 Friday
Final Edition
Parental guidance suggested?: British boy three times normal size brings home problem of obesity in kids and mom and dad's degree of responsibility
Leslie Baldacci, The Chicago Sun-Times
In Chicago, one of the world's fattest cities, doctors and child welfare officials have handled cases similar to this week's drama around an English boy so overweight that authorities investigated his mother for possible abuse or neglect. Authorities in England threatened to take custody of 8-year-old Connor McCreaddie, who at 218 pounds is three times the size of an average child his age. Connor was allowed to remain with his mother after she entered into a formal agreement with the Local Safeguarding Children Board.
"Yes, we have had [similar reports] at some point," said Kendall Marlowe, deputy director for communications for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. "Situations such as this one are not common, but we're not saying it never happens. We do receive and investigate allegations of medical neglect, which can include issues of nutrition as well as other issues of providing proper medical care."
Reports to DCFS are based on actual harm or the risk of harm to a child. In Great Britain, the Children Act places a duty on the local authority to conduct an inquiry if it has ''reasonable cause to suspect that a child ... in their area is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm.''
Marlowe said DCFS "would typically seek to provide services and service links to intact families to help safeguard the child and strengthen the family's capacity to successfully care for their own children." That is what happened in Connor's case.
At a time when 17 percent of American children and half the adult population is overweight, the case spotlights the issue of parental responsibility for children's weight. The number of overweight children has tripled in the past 30 years, placing them at increased risk for diabetes, skeletal disorders and heart disease. While some children "grow into" their baby fat, many become fat adults.
"I've seen children that young even heavier, and I am not happy with the approach of thinking of this as primarily parental neglect because there are contributors to childhood [obesity] at every level," said Dr. Katherine Kaufer Christoffel, director of Children's Memorial Hospital's Center for Obesity Management and Prevention. "To pick out the family component as the decisive one seems grossly unfair and inaccurate."
In up to 90 percent of cases, "parents of most overweight children do not realize they are overweight," Christoffel said. "Their eyes are not calibrated that way."
But when parents refuse to accept child obesity as a health problem, that's "very worrisome," Christoffel said. "If the doctors say your child has medical problems because he is overweight, and the family says, 'Oh, no, we're all like that and we're not going to talk to you about it,' then your ears perk up."
Children with a body mass index in the 85th to 95th percentile have an increased risk of staying obese and developing health problems. Doctors also worry about children who gain weight so quickly that they cross percentiles.
If parents are unwilling to make changes, or carry through with agreed-upon changes and the child's condition worsens, "then I'd have to say this is medical neglect," Christoffel said.
Parenting has "a huge impact, not only for addressing obesity but preventing it," said Julie Germann, a psychologist and director of the FitMatters Weight Control Program at LaRabida Children's Hospital. "I tell families, just as you teach values to your kids about being a good, decent human being, you teach them values about how they take care of themselves. What we see across the board is that parents have gotten into the same habits as the rest of American society: big portions, convenience foods, video games in the house, being able to afford an extra TV so the kid has one in the bedroom."
FitMatters serves children 8 and older and their families.
"You can't take every child who's overweight out of their homes -- that's a third of the population and it's not going to solve the problem anyway," Germann said. "Get involved with services that teach what are the healthy things to do, how to change habits slowly and gradually. In American society, and spreading all over the world, it is so easy to be unhealthy and so difficult and requires so much planning and forethought to do the healthy things: to pack a lunch, to plan a grocery list, to set aside time to exercise."
Connor came to the attention of child protection officials after his mother allowed a TV news crew to film his day-to-day life for a month. Sky TV showed footage of Connor's mother serving him meals of french fries, meat and buttered bread.
''He'll hover around the kitchen for food. He'll continually go in the fridge,'' Nicola McKeown said of her son. ''I just keep telling him to get out of the fridge, wait until meal times and stuff. But at the end of the day, he was born hungry. He has always been hungry.''
''Bacon. Mmmm... That's my favorite. Um ... chicken, steak, sausage,'' the boy told the camera.
lbaldacci@suntimes.com
HUGGABLE, FAT, OBESE? CHECK YOUR MASS
How fat is too fat? Calculate your body mass online. It only takes a few seconds to determine your body mass index, the number used by doctors and researchers to tell whether someone's normal, overweight or obese.
Children and teens have their own calculator because the amount of body fat considered healthy for kids changes with age, sometimes month to month.
To calculate your body mass index online, Google "BMI calculator." The BMI calculator on the Centers for Disease Control Web site (www.cdc.gov) has pages of information regarding children and teens.
Body Mass Index is a ratio of height and weight. An adult with a body mass index between 25 and 30 is considered overweight; above 30, obese. Virtually everyone who registers an obesity-level body mass index over 30 has too much fat and faces a higher risk of heart attack, stroke, diabetes, arthritis and some cancers, health officials say.
A child with a body mass index in the 85th percentile is at increased risk of staying obese, and a 95th percentile rating is "worrisome," said Dr. Katherine Kaufer Christoffel, director of the Center for Obesity Management and Prevention at Children's Memorial Hospital. An 8-year-old boy who is 4-foot-8 and weighs 80 pounds is in the 85th percentile with a body mass index of 17.9. When the British boy's weight, 218 pounds, was entered with [a posited] height of 5 feet, the calculator didn't work because the information entered was "outside the range of expected values."