her new born baby girl taken away from her after less than a week

In a tragic case a family in Scotland has been broken up after social workers decided that the parents were not caring for them properly and were putting them at risk. The parents who are both overweight themselves have seven children including a newborn baby and they have all been put into care. The family comes from Dundee which is known for its chronic obesity problem, as is much of Scotland and especially Glasgow.

The Children's Panel which rules on cases like this explained that it didn't have a policy to remove children away from their families purely because of weight problems and hinted therefore that there were other reasons why the children had been taken into custody. However the family lawyer Ms Price said that it was clear that the council were taking children away because of obesity and that it was not fair and they were being victimised.

The mother who weighs 322lb. had her new born baby girl taken away from her after less than a week and the father who weighs just over 250lb. was said to be livid. One of the children, a boy of thirteen weighs almost 225lb. which makes him likely to be classified as severely obese.

The local health authorities did not put out the names of the parents to protect the identities of the seven children but the local people are all talking about it. There are two schools of thought, with one group of people saying how shocking and wrong it is that a family is broken up like this and that the stress and trauma could make the children even more overweight, and another group of people saying that it was tantamount to child abuse to allow children to become so fat and the council were right to intervene.

Another thing however which this story highlights is that obesity often runs in the family and that unhealthy eating habits are often inherited from parents. Parent should always remember that they must set a good example if they want their children to live healthy lives. Research shows that if when children become teenagers they are obese they are likely to stay obese for the rest of their lives.