Care warning over child obesity

One million obese children by 2012

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Social services will have to step in more often over the welfare of dangerously overweight children if Britain's obesity epidemic continues to grow, council leaders have warned.

The LGA is calling for a national debate about the extent to which extreme obesity in children could be considered a factor contributing to parental neglect.

Council social services have only become involved in isolated cases until now, where it has been judged that children's health is being put at risk by their parents.

However, the LGA is warning that local authorities will have to intervene more and more to deal with the problem, normally through offering help and advice to parents and keeping the welfare of children under review.

It has been estimated that in England, by 2012 one million children will be obese, by 2025 around a quarter (24%) of boys will be obese.

The LGA says the epidemic is having an expensive impact on local public services in eight ways:

• Councils stepping in to deal with cases where the welfare of dangerously overweight children is at risk.

• The cost to social services of caring for house-bound people suffering from the range of conditions and illnesses that are the consequence of obesity.

• Furniture in school classes, gyms and canteens having to be made wider for larger children and to meet new standards.

• Town halls widening crematoria furnaces to cater for spiralling numbers of stouter clients, costing tens of thousands of pounds.

• Fire services called in to winch obese members of the public out of dangerous buildings in emergencies such as fire.

• Ambulances being re-equipped with extra-wide stretchers and winches for obese people.

• Councils having to provide obese residents with adaptations to their houses and help with the provision of walking aids.

• Fears that local public transport, including buses and trams, will have to accommodate fewer passengers as people get bigger.

David Rogers, LGA spokesperson on public health, said: "Councils would step in to deal with an under-nourished and neglected child so should a case with a morbidly obese child be different?

"If parents consistently place their children at risk through bad diet and lack of exercise is it right that a council should step in to keep the child's health under review?

"There needs to be a national debate about the extent to which it is acceptable for local authorities to take action in cases where the welfare of children is in real jeopardy," Cllr Rogers added.