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Last updated on March 6th, 2018 at 12:32 am
A tubby child faces familial separation:
British authorities may take an eight-year-old boy weighing 99 kg into protective custody unless his mother improves his diet, officials said.
- “They call us fat” he says. Obviously because they are, since he uses the plural for himself, mum and sister. Dad’s apparently not on the scene, as there’s no mention of him. The kid’s predicted to develop early-onset diabetes and be dead before 30 at great expense to the taxpayer-funded health system he’s never likely to support. Aged 11 and already an oxygen burglar.Posted by mareeS on 2007 02 27 at 10:53 AM • permalink
- I don’t care if he weighs 299 kg, he’s never going to qualify as a Fat American Minion™. And somehow, Fat British Minion just doesn’t have the same cheeseburgerish appeal. Perhaps ThinandBritish could offer the little beefeater some slimming suggestions. And that thought brings to mind the question of what does this kid eat to get so fat? I mean, have you ever eaten British food?
- The government can throw him in one of those good old “Oliver Twist” style orphanages, that’ll fix him no time.Posted by alien kiwi on 2007 02 27 at 11:48 AM • permalink
For the benefit of anyone not familiar with kilograms 99kg is about 220lb.
I’m 36, 6’ tall, on Weight Watchers, and I weigh less. That poor kid needs help.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2007 02 27 at 11:49 AM • permalink
- Personally, I feel badly for the child. Surely the authorities could have sat down with the boy’s mother and talk reason with her. Making a public case out of this will only stigmatize and scar the child.Posted by wronwright on 2007 02 27 at 11:51 AM • permalink
Connor’s mother said he steals and hides food, frustrating her efforts to help him.
“He has double, treble what a normal boy (of his age) would have, but if I didn’t give him enough at teatime then he would just go on at us all night for snacks and stuff,” she told ITV.
Here’s the first rule of changing your diet: Rid your larder of all the “snacks and stuff”. Granted the kid can get crap outside the home, but make it difficult for him. Limit his pocket money to just enough to cover a school lunch or send him to school with a nutritious packed lunch and no pocket money. It would have been instructive to see a picture of mum and sis, but I think we can guess what they look like. Hard for the kid to develop self-discipline when those around him are stuffing their faces with abandon.
I admit I’m ambivalent about this one. I despise state intrusion into the home. And I suspect that if we expect government to be responsible for our health, we can also expect government to make those intrusions ever more frequently. The notion of “child abuse” could be stretched to mean just about anything the government wants it to mean.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2007 02 27 at 11:54 AM • permalink
- #11 wronwright, have you ever met a mother of a child this large? There’s only one way a kid gets so fat, and it’s always because mum’s fatter. Very un-PC of me to say so, but there you go: fat mums breed fat kids. Probably has something to do with the fact nobody in the house gets off their fat bum.
- #13, It’s a slippery slope indeed when government intrudes to tell you what you can or can’t feed your child.
However, the kid’s in trouble and needs help, no doubt, as do the rest of the family. Seems like a lack of self-discipline all around if the kid can just “go on at us all night for snacks” and they just give in to shut him up.
- Texas Bob – “I mean, have you ever eaten British food?”
Exactly! I still shudder at a 25 year old remberence of an attempt to eat a English version of pizza.
I suppose I should have clued in when the waiter set the table with spoons.
Posted by joe bagadonuts on 2007 02 27 at 12:31 PM • permalink
- mareeS I’ve known fat children with thin moms.
Kid fusses you stick something in their gob,
Make sure they watch lots of TV,
if they are like my childrens school they don’t get the strap they miss recess for punishment, like duh. So you’re punishing these fat children by making them sit there and do nothing because them getting the strap like I did is bad. Far better that 8 year old fatties can weight 200 lbs.
And what ever you do when you know your kid is a blob don’t go for walks, one of the side effects of high crime rates in many cases.
Posted by hollingshead on 2007 02 27 at 12:56 PM • permalink
- #15 mareeS,
My oldest son was a big kid. Always the biggest in every classroom. He was born 10 pounds, 14 ounces, two weeks early. I tried to talk my wife into going the full term –“come on, don’t chicken out on me”—but she jumped on her doctor’s advice to have a C section.
My son was so tall and broad that he was barred from playing youth football. I remember often he being laughed out for his size. Then came 7th grade and no size limitations on the school football team. He became the starting offensive and defensive lineman. For the first time his self esteem and confidence grew, from something other than dad and mom telling him how swell a kid he was.
He’s now 19 years old and 6’3” tall, 250 lbs. Great kid, happy. But it wasn’t easy to make sure he became what he is today.
Young kids that are different than the norm—too fat, too tall, ungainly, not especially pretty—I feel so badly for them. I do think this kid needs help, but there’s got to be a more sensitive way than for the authorities to take legal action.
Posted by wronwright on 2007 02 27 at 01:56 PM • permalink
- It seems the kid is 5’ tall and takes a size 8 shoe, whatever that is in Strilian, so he has a mighty big frame for an 8-year-old. From the photo he looks pretty fat, but nothing outlandish, so I don’t see anything there to justify imprisonment. If being overweight was a crime, Shane Warne would have been in jail for years, and a good thing too. Young Connor just happens to be big-boned, especially his ass-bone. There’s another pic of the boy/manatee sitting astride a bicycle, so let’s hope he does lots of pedalling and cuts down the calories.
- You know the UK has gone completely to hell when the press uses metric. What’s next? Are they going to rename Parliament to something the EU likes better?
If I wanted to use metric, I’d be French. Or something equally revolting.
Posted by rightwingprof on 2007 02 27 at 02:46 PM • permalink
- Here’s the ticket: Prince Charles Calls for Ban on McDonald’s Restaurants and Big MacsPosted by Kyda Sylvester on 2007 02 27 at 04:06 PM • permalink
- Mark V confidentiality is for only when it suits them. If they’re pushing the latest politically correct cause (in this case the increasingly oversold child obesity) then propriety goes out the window for the “greater good”. How will they be able to call for banning McDonalds if they don’t have a poster child?
- Diabetes, heart disease, cancer, skeletal problems, sleep apnea and chronic razzing by his schoolmates. Yeah, that kid’s “well cared for.”
Maybe mum should tour some pediatrician offices over here and see what morbid obesity does to kids. The short answer she’d hear is that they’re doomed to a short, miserable life.Posted by Gary from Jersey on 2007 02 27 at 04:37 PM • permalink
- #24: Absolutely. I had a look at that pic and he is a big kid, no doubt about it. My nine-year-old brother is only about four foot four; young Connor is definitely going to be a large person, whatever he eats.
That’s not to say that the surfeit of junk food isn’t a bad idea; when I read the article on Fark about this, I had to resist the urge to slam my head into the desk. But I don’t think it’s as ultimately awful as it might be.
Posted by Tungsten Monk on 2007 02 27 at 05:22 PM • permalink
- Get on the deconcentration camp train, now leaving Wallsend, North Tyneside.Posted by andycanuck on 2007 02 27 at 07:54 PM • permalink
It seems the kid is 5’ tall and takes a size 8 shoe, whatever that is in Strilian, so he has a mighty big frame for an 8-year-old.
In the course of losing 90+ pounds, I lost a shoe size. Feet don’t accumulate a lot of fat, but some builds up there. Plus, a heavier person’s feet will splay out more under the pressure.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2007 02 27 at 08:09 PM • permalink
- Bloated on welfare. Socialism still kills poor people even in rich societies.Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 02 27 at 08:26 PM • permalink
- Welcome to the nanny state writ LARGE!
Could it be possible that this kid has a condition where he never feels full? Could it be he has emotional issues that have not been properly addressed – as in where’s dad? Could it be he has a hormonal or glandular condition that the fantastic British health system has not deemed worthy of testing for? No, it just HAS to be mom being NEGLECTFUL. Afterall, taking a kid into foster care FOR BEING FAT is such a brilliant and oh-so-cost effective solution! He won’t be too upset by that emotionally or anything. That shouldn’t make him want to eat a whole lot more, and not less. Because ripping a child from the only home he has ever known – not for sexual, emotional, or physical abuse, but because some government busybodies think he’s too fat, and we just can’t have THAT! – isn’t, in itself, abusive in any way… Perhaps the “authorities” can put him on an enforced diet and make him run around a circle at gunpoint until Frau Farbissina blows her little whistle and tells him to stop, too. “Lose some weight, tubby, and we might just let you see your Mum again!”
Welcome to socialized health care, folks! If it MIGHT cost “the people” too much to care for you someday, you can forget about your rights today. What a nice slippery slope to bringing back eugenics this is. Born with too many costly disabilities? Sorry, you’re a bad investment. Time to withold the feeding tube! Getting old and need major surgery? Wait in line. And if you die in the meantime? Well, less burden on the system. If you’re too fat and might make the government pay for POSSIBLE diabetes someday? Say goodbye to Mum!
Hey, why don’t we just line up the smokers, firing squad style, right now and save ourselves the trouble later? They’re going to get costly someday. Sunbathers? We’re not paying for your eventual skin cancer, either. No more sunny holidays for you! You might consider closing those pubs while you’re at it. Cirrhosis of the liver ain’t a cheap way to go. Maybe we should put a maximum speed limit on cars of 25 mph and build them out of Nerf, so we don’t have too many messy accidents. And we all know how DANGEROUS sex is! The time has obviously come to require circumcision and surgically implant condoms on the sexually active. That way the state doesn’t have to pay for all those unwanted babies, abortions, AIDS, STDs, etc.. Because the imperitive here is not to put any strain on that solid-as-a-rock “system”. And, obviously, the place to take a stand is on this overweight boy. Brilliant! Hey, why not just put a security camera on his refrigerator, his back pack, and the box of twinkies hidden under his bed? I mean, what’s a few more lost freedoms in the face of a money pit like THIS?!?
Do we really have to say it out loud? First they came for the unborn ones, the ones with no voices, no rights. They were “inconvenient”. Then they came for the “vegetative” ones, the ones whose “quality of life” others deemed unworthy. Then they decided that being overweight was potentially too expensive and that both the parents and child should be punished, and they came for the fat ones… Exactly where does this stop? When we identify the gay gene? When we can weed out the left-handed? When we decide blue-eyed people are more “pure” than the brown-eyed people? Maybe when we all voluntarily start marching into the Logans Run Carousel and off ourselves before we get too old, or unacceptably ugly, or burdensome?
- How dare these nanny-staters interfere? They’re trying to crush his boyish dreams of international sports stardom.
(BTW- any snide remarks about the inferior fattening qualities of English food are right off the mark- you ‘Mericans think you’re so superior with your “hamburgers” and “french fries”- try living on chips slow-cooked in tallow then left to coagulate, pork pies full of jellied pig lard, deep-fried confectionary and pizza- what’s more, virtually everything, including dessert, comes with a fried egg atop. English arteries carry fluids similar in texture and density as junket. Amateurs.)
Has anyone watched Jamie Oliver’s attempts to reform the English school lunch system?
The British simply don’t understand food. Or at least the lower classes don’t. When travelling through England we despaired of finding good food at decent prices. It was either cheap stodge or very expensive quality. There doesn’t seem to be anything in between.
Jamie Oliver was almost in tears when he went to an Italian school and discovered the high quality of the food provided, and the fact that all the kids knew about proper food preparation.
I personally think its time for the Romans to reinvade Britain, and not leave until they have learned to cook.
Posted by LeftyApostate on 2007 02 27 at 09:10 PM • permalink
- The kid is only 8. He’s horribly obese, but his body might change for the better. As big as he is, he might naturally eat a lot to grow so much and so early. Obviously he needs to eat better mix of real food and junk.
Looking at the picture of the mother (pure white trash, like American white trash), I don’t think she’s capable of budgeting a good mix (not an issue of money). Tough luck for the kid, hopefully he won’t develop too many serious physical problems before his body and brain figure out a good equilibrium.
“How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat!”
- In video of the mothers house today, (and I can’t say with certainty) but the house looked as though they lived in the projects.
The assumption is, is the food the whole family ingests, has probably never been healthy.
Taking the child away isn’t going to solve the problem, psychological evaluation AND intervention are the answers, but doubt these people could afford it. There are ways to solve the problem, someone just has to do it.
There must be some in England with a heart that are able to assist this family, before they all die of overconsumption of the wrong food
- Let the poor blighter eat to his fat caked hearts content. The only thing his future holds is stealing Escorts, smoking fags and drinking Scrumpy on the common whilst his childrens two mothers gob off Jamaican’s for some more rock.
Anyway, in ten years time The Caliphate will be removing pork scratchings and pork pies from his life, so he may as well enjoy them now.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 02 27 at 10:19 PM • permalink
- I was in England in 1981 and I can tell you big, fat children were not exactly rare then. In fact, my mother and I were amazed at how fat the kids and even the babies we saw were. This was before the Great Enfattening of America—my mother and I were both rather thin then, especially compared with the heftier European women we saw all over the place. And at every restaurant we went to with the possible exception of the curry place in London and the Chinese restaurant in Stirling, the waiters kept urging more and more food on us, telling us that “American women are too thin.” How times change.
And yes, what Habib says about English “cuisine,” at least at what over here would be the Denny’s/roadside diner level, is true. After a couple of appalling experiences my mother and I sought out Indian and Chinese eateries or splurged on expensive restaurants where at least they knew not to boil beef into grey sponge. We didn’t bring back very many souvenirs from our trip, but I did gain ten pounds (in weight not money).
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 02 27 at 10:25 PM • permalink
- This is a common saying amongst Autsralian men (common amongst my associates, anyway): “She got the the Heathrow Injection”. It describes the somewhat heftier appearance of lasses returning from spending time in the UK.
A Heathrow Injection combined with a Continental Vaccination is sometimes fatal. Doesn’t seem to affect males as badly. Probably because your average Austrayan man budgets only for alcohol on a European trip and tends to stick to that budget.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 02 27 at 10:42 PM • permalink
- Did anyone else catch the part where young Connor spits out the healthy food his mum tries to feed him?
Once again, I thank my parents for their ongoing ‘abuse’ during my childhood: if I pulled a stunt like that, 1) I’d have been sent to eat on the floor with the dog; 2) that chewed-up food would be ALL I was offered at mealtimes until it was gone.
And you know what? The mere knowledge that my parents would do it without hesitation or remorse was enough to ensure that it never, ever happened.
I can still hear it ringing in my ears—“You’ll eat what the rest of us eat or you won’t eat at all.”
- as a Fully Paid Up LardarseTM, i resent this shite. all of us have some self-destructive habits, unless we are so perfect our smugness is licence for premeditated murder. the range of ways to kill yourself is immense, so each to their own. that said, young Tubby needs some discipline & a few weeks in kiddy boot camp might administer a salutary short sharp shock
- #41 BethB – well said.
#25 rightwingprof-
You know the UK has gone completely to hell when the press uses metricActually this isn’t an example of creeping Europeanisation of our language.
For as long as i can remember, we have referred to people’s weight in either kilos or stones. If you say you weigh 200lb, you will get some pretty blank stares.
miles, yards, feet and inches, driving on the left, but for some reason not lbs.
Posted by pommygranate on 2007 02 28 at 12:43 AM • permalink
- Habib’s just sent a message to the future!Posted by Sensible Swim on 2007 02 28 at 02:48 AM • permalink
- #41 face it BethB – there are a lot of intrusive bossy people around.Posted by carpefraise on 2007 02 28 at 09:31 AM • permalink
- I could stand to lose seven or eight kilos myself, but this kid weighs 15 kg more than me, a 173cm 37 year old. I don’t care how robustly framed he is: that is morbidly obese.
The gulf in food quality in the UK is between the middle class and our version of bogans like this fatty and his mother. If you’re educated and relatively affluent, food in the UK is superb. If you’re a chav on a council estate, turkey twizzlers and chips is all you’re going to eat. What that does to cognitive development scarcely bears thinking about.
Posted by David Gillies on 2007 02 28 at 12:42 PM • permalink
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