We all know children who are frankly fat, but how many of us are brave enough to use the f-word, especially about our own child? When young we were taught that it was rude to discuss someone’s weight, as parents we are warned that paying too much attention to the scales is a sure fire way to anorexia.
But as child obesity levels continue to soar — so much so that draft recommendations from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence propose that stomach stapling for under18s should be available on the NHS, perhaps it’s time we stopped being quite so British about it.
Simon Dexter, one of the few surgeons who has carried out stomach staplings on teenagers, is certain the operation can be a life-saver. He operated on Bethany Walton, then aged 19, when she was thought to be the heaviest teenager in the country. “She was on a hiding to nothing,” he says.
“There aren’t many 34st 19-year-olds who make it into their forties.”
Bethany weighed 9lb when she was born and continued to grow at twice the rate of a normal child. By the time she was 13 she weighed 23st.
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Eating became her only comfort and it was only after surgery in April, when Dexter reduced her stomach “to about the width of a thumb” that she felt full for the first time — on a meal of a small yoghurt. By August she had lost 4st and was hoping to lose 10 more. Bethany is now at college, still losing weight, and has become a minor celebrity in her home town of Lincoln.
Although Bethany’s case may be an extreme, Tom Fuller* whose nine-year-old daughter, Lily*, is at 7st 7lb, just above the recommended weight for her age and height, believes it’s time we all stopped pretending that puppy fat will just go away.
Having tried and failed to wean his daughter off fizzy drinks and junk food, he finally referred her to a dietician. “It was making her miserable, therefore it was a problem,” he says. “It always came to a head at the school sports day when she would come last. By the time she was six she was starting to say she was fat. We told her she wasn’t, even though she was, probably, overweight.
“We needed to tackle it, but my wife was worried that if we said she was overweight she would get into prepubescent anorexia.”
Eventually they bit the bullet and made an appointment with the family doctor. Even the GP thought Fuller was overreacting. “The psychology police have got hold of this,” he says. “But it’s ridiculous not to talk about these things. There will always be tears whenever you tackle it, but the longer you leave it the worse it gets.”
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Lily may not have thanked him for putting her under the care of a dietician, but she is happier. “She is relieved something is being done,” he says.
Angela Innes, who runs a riding school in Dorset, went through agony deciding whether to send her then 14-year-old daughter Sadie to fat camp, but with her daughter 4st 7lb — and her bank account £2,500 — lighter she is convinced that it was the best thing she could have done. Sadie had always been overweight but began comfort eating when her secondary school closed down and her friends were scattered far and wide. “She was an emotional wreck and her weight just spiralled,” explains her mother.
“The fridge door was coming off its hinges, but there are only so many times you can keep saying, ‘Get away from the fridge’.”
Sadie, now 16, weighed 16st 7lb when her parents made her go to the Carnegie Weight Management Camp run by Leeds Metropolitan University last summer. “They dragged me there kicking and screaming,” she says. “I thought it was going to be people who didn’t know what it was like to be overweight making me run around, but it was the best experience of my life.”
Today, after a second summer at camp she has lost 4st 7lb and is planning to become a fitness instructor. She wishes her parents had been brave enough to send her years ago. “I used to hide it, but I was so unhappy,” she says.
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Paul Sacher, paediatrician dietician at Great Ormond Street hospital and founder of Mind, Exercise, Nutrition . . . Dot It! (Mend), a free, 10-week programme for obese children, agrees that ignoring weight problems is neither kind, nor effective.
Children, he says, often know they have a problem even if their parents are blind to it. “We have children who drag their parents in to our programmes and to start with they might sit there stony-faced,” he explains.
Sometimes, though, the answer is something as simple as portion control. “They suddenly realise they have been feeding their children an adult portion all their lives,” he says.
Just like the Jesuits advise, you have to catch a child young to avoid losing them to a lifetime of bad habits. The Mend programme concentrates on children between the ages of seven and 13. “A child becomes more inactive as they get older, so if you are an obese child the chances are you are going to be an obese adult,” says Sacher.
“Any parent who realises the importance of education for their child should treat their family’s health education the same way. Why not go to a class to learn how to feed your children healthily? However much we think we know we can always pick up tips. It’s a life skill like any other.”
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*Names have been changed