A girl of five has been taken into care because she weighed more than 10 stone, it was revealed yesterday.
The girl is one of the heaviest of her age ever recorded in the UK and at her peak weight of 10st 10lbs, was more than three times the typical weight for a girl of five.
Yesterday experts criticised the failure to identify the youngster’s problem earlier and said the authorities should do more to monitor obesity in pre-school years.
Details of the case were revealed through a Freedom of Information Act request, but the local authority refused to reveal more information for fear of identifying the child. It is not known whether any adults had been arrested over her care.
The child, from Newport, South Wales, was taken into care in August last year because she weighed 10st 5lbs.
Her weight increased to 10st 10lbs two months later, but dropped to below 8st this September.
Earlier this year it was revealed that more than 900 children, including 101 under-fives, had been admitted to hospital because of obesity in the past three years.
Tam Fry, of the Child Growth Foundation, said the Newport case highlighted the need for proper weight monitoring before children started primary school.
He added: ‘We are failing our children hugely by not monitoring their growth from a very early age. About 25 per cent of our primary school entrants are seriously overweight.’
Commenting on the Newport case, he said he found it ‘absolutely astounding’ the problem wasn’t picked up earlier. Mr Fry added: ‘She would have been out and about and all over the place.
Nursery school teachers will have seen her, probably she has been taken to the doctors several times, therefore the surgery staff and the doctor will have seen her.
‘It just throws up a whole problem of people wishing not to mention weight in case it upsets the parents or upsets the child.’
Mr Fry added: ‘This is the tip of the iceberg. There will be an enormous amount of children overweight, possibly dangerously overweight, where even the parents don’t recognise it.’
Joanna Nicolas, a child protection consultant, said the Newport case was among the most extreme she had heard of in her 18-year career.
‘I have never come across a five-year-old who weighs 10st,’ she said. ‘Why didn’t somebody do something sooner rather than picking it up at this stage?’
Politicians in Newport called for answers about how the girl was allowed to get so fat.
Conservative councillor Tom Suller said: ‘It’s a sad sign of the times. It’s really terrible that a child can end up this way.
‘There are a lot of obese parents out there and their children are ending up exactly the same way.
‘There are other children in this sort of state – it’s a ticking time bomb. A lot of people just think, “I’ll get a KFC tonight and McDonald’s tomorrow”. They don’t consider the consequences.’
A Newport Council spokesman said: ‘The wellbeing of children and young people is of paramount importance and at the heart of all the work that is done by our children’s services department.
‘It would be inappropriate to comment further on this case in the best interests of the chil
据英国《每日邮报》12月8日报道，一名5岁的英国女童曾因体重超过10英石（约63.5公斤）被送进医院接受治疗。
这个女童是南威尔士纽波特人。去年8月，她因体重达到约65.8公斤被送进医院治疗。两个月后，她的体重增加到约68公斤，超过5岁女孩正常体重的3倍多，成为英国有史以来这个年龄最重的孩子之一。今年9月，她的体重降到8英石（约50.8公斤）以下。
根据《信息自由法案》的要求，当地政府公开了相关细节，但是因为担心泄露孩子的身份，它没有透露更多信息。目前尚不清楚是否有照顾孩子的成年人被捕。
儿童成长基金会的塔姆·弗里表示，没能更早地解决这个问题“真的很令人吃惊”。他说：“幼儿园老师应该见过她，她有可能多次被带去看医生，因此外科医生应该也见过她……这只是冰山一角。将来会有大量的儿童超重，有可能是危险的超重，而就连家长也意识不到这个问题。”
儿童保护顾问乔安娜·尼古拉斯表示，纽波特的这起案例是她18年工作生涯中遇到的最极端的一个。“我从未见过5岁的孩子体重有10英石的。为什么没有人早些采取措施？”
保守党议员汤姆·舒勒说：“这是时代的悲哀信号。一个孩子变成这个样子真的很可怕。现在有许多肥胖的家长，他们的孩子正在步其后尘……很多人只想着‘我今晚要吃肯德基，明天要吃麦当劳’，却没考虑到后果。”
纽波特议会发言人说：“儿童和年轻人的健康是头等大事，是我们儿童服务部门所有工作的核心。”
今年早些时候，英国有900多个孩子因肥胖住院，其中5岁以下儿童有101名。