MELBOURNE: Parents, who let their child grow obese, should be forced to sign "responsibility contracts" to manage their kid's health, suggested experts.
A Sydney-based obesity expert has asked doctors to report about parents, who let their child grow obese, to child protecting authorities saying it was amounting to child abuse.
Victorian Community Services Minister Lisa Neville yesterday said a doctor would have to hold a firm view that the child was at risk, according to 'The Age' report today.
Shirley Alexander of a Sydney-based hospital argued in a Medical Journal of Australian that if a child was severely obese, parents could be forced to sign "responsibility contracts" to manage their health. In extreme cases they should even be reported to the courts, she said.
"Passive acquiescence by a doctor in the neglect of a severely obese child could constitute a breach of a doctor's duty of care," the MJA article by Alexander and three other colleagues said.
That neglect could include "failure by the child's parents to ensure a minimally adequate diet and exercise". The article also pointed out at an example of four year-old Jade, a fictional case study compiled after observing several real cases.
Jade was 110 centimeters tall and weighed 40 kilograms, with related complications such as high blood pressure, a fatty liver and sleep apnoea. She watched television for up to six hours a day and had temper tantrums when she did not get whatever food she desired.
Her father allowed her to snack on junk food and did not enforce diet or exercise. Almost two years after first being referred to doctors, the hospital notified the state's child protection authorities, which imposed a hospital stay and compulsory supervision when she visited her father. Top
