Eight Year Old Weighs 218 Pounds

[Kitsune]

...and he might get taken away from his mother.

"People pick on us because of my weight. They call us fat. It makes us feel sick of the nutters always shouting at us," Connor told ITV.

This kid is huge. He weighs 58 pounds more than I do!

Connor, who lives with his mother and sister, has difficulty dressing and washing himself, misses school regularly because of poor health, and is targeted by bullies.

That's got to be an interesting smell on a hot day.

[Shawnee123]

In cases like this that I've seen previously, the mother is usually huge, too. From that picture in the article, it doesn't look like the case.

He needs help. If he's hiding food and eating like he does there must be other problems. If mom's worried about them taking him away, she should consider losing him permanently, as in death.

Sad...

[SquadRat1]

He looks to be tall for his age too.

[monster]

It seems to me there's a vital step missing in the process of helping this boy and his family. The mother is clearly aware of the problem and making attempts to do something (albeit unsuccessful and perhaps even half-hearted ones), but the authorities are now threatening a care order because they have missed countless appointments.

Could the mountain not go to Mohammed in this case? Couldn't the nutritionists etc. visit them? It's hard enough to make a regularly-sized eight-year-old go somewhere they don't want to. What is she going to do if he point blank refuses to get up and go to the appointments? Employ a fork-lifter? The boy clearly doesn't seem to be aware of the seriousness of the problem -he's worried about the names he's being called, not the fact that he is likely to spend the rest of his short life in a great deal of physical discomfort.

I worry that if they take the boy from his family, whatever the problem is that causes him to over eat (low self esteem, attention-seeking, whatever) might be exacerbated. "I'm so worthless even my mum didn't want me" type thing.

It is child abuse, and the authorities clearly need to step up their action, but taking him into care? Not sure.

Perhaps the TV company could pay for a "food guard/personal trainer" to move in with the family for a month and film the progress?

[Elspode]

I want to know how an eight year old uses the collective term "we" when referring to himself. Did he grow up reading Cleveland Amory or something? Is he royalty? Or does he simply bemoan that he weighs enough to be a group of eight year olds?

[glatt]

The authorities are in a bad position here. Basically there is only one tool the government has at its disposal. No. Make that two. They can take the kid away. They can threaten to take the kid away.

As a parent, I'm not sure I'd ever voluntarily allow a social worker to enter my house or talk to my kids. The best scenario would be that they leave and nothing comes of it. The worst is they take your kid from you. Nothing good can come from letting a social worker into your life. Not that they don't mean well.

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by glatt

They can take the kid away. They can threaten to take the kid away.

Seems they'll do neither after some agreement was reached.

[monster]

Originally Posted by Elspode

I want to know how an eight year old uses the collective term "we" when referring to himself. Did he grow up reading Cleveland Amory or something? Is he royalty? Or does he simply bemoan that he weighs enough to be a group of eight year olds?

It's the local dialect. When they say 300 miles north of London, they mean a million miles away. Wallsend is practically Newcastle -Geordieland.

[monster]

Originally Posted by Kitsune

Seems they'll do neither after some agreement was reached.

So far so good.

[Perry Winkle]

I'm really curious to know how tall he is.

Compulsive eating is a bitch...

Still...he's about 20 lbs. lighter than I am.

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by grant

I'm really curious to know how tall he is.

From this article:

When he was 2½, Connor was too heavy for his mother to pick him up, and at 5, he weighed more than 126 pounds, said The Journal, a regional newspaper. Now the boy, who is tall for his age at 5 feet, wears adult clothes and size eight shoes, the newspaper said.

At five feet tall, he's way beyond "overweight".

[monster]

Too heavy to pick up at 2 1/2? There's got to be some underlying mental or physical problem there, not just bad diet. Not that the parental attitude to nutrition has helped in any way....

I wonder if it's not just the parents but a regional attitude to diet?

I lived a little north of Newcastle for a year when I was a kid in the early 80s, and no-one there ate vegetables. They were for the southern yuppies in the cities. They were grown on the farms to be sold or fed to the animals, not eaten by us. My (one-parent, not overly functional) family adopted that culture, even though we had come from a more vegetable-friendly southern urban environment and we knew what a balanced diet was. It was a bit of a "yes we know we should do it, but nobody else is so that makes it OK" attitude.

The funniest bit is, my mother and her boyfriend were in a "vegetarian' phase. Which basically meant we ate chips and other forms of spuds, rice, pasta, eggs and cheese. What a fun diet.

[Ibby]

Actually that sounds a lot like MY diet, monster...

[monster]

Originally Posted by Ibram

Actually that sounds a lot like MY diet, monster...

You want to end up like me?

heed the warning and eat your veg.

[xoxoxoBruce]

He's just a growing boy. Connor not Ibram.