So childhood obesity isn't a problem solely here in Canada and the States. A five-year-old girl in Wales was taken from her parents when it was discovered that she weighed more than three times the average for her age.
According to an article in the Metro, the unnamed girl weighed more than ten stone (around 140 lbs). Experts were staggered that the girl managed to put on so much weight without any intervention from her doctors, teachers, or family.
"She has been let down by everybody. It’s tragic," said an obesity expert and honorary chairman of the Child Growth Foundation, Dr Tam Fry.
"There is no way that a child between nought and five can have lived without going out into the street, without having gone to nursery school or the GP and somebody, somewhere along the line, should have said 'something is wrong'."
She was finally taken into care this past August, after which her weight dropped to 112 lbs, yet her Body Mass Index (BMI) remained twice that of the average child.
Apparently 35 per cent of kids under 16 in Wales are overweight.
Is obesity a form of child abuse? Is taking this little girl away from her parents the right course of action?
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