We read:
"Ministers banned the word 'obese' on letters to the parents of fat children - because focus groups did not like it, England's chief medical officer said today. Professor Liam Donaldson revealed that the term was replaced on letters to parents by 'very overweight' over fears it would upset and stigmatise fat children. Writing on the BBC News website he said obesity had become a taboo word or an 'O word'.
The Department of Health announced in August that for the first time parents would be routinely informed if their child was clinically overweight. Children are weighed on entering primary school (at age four or five) and in their final year (aged 10 or 11) as part of the National Child Measurement Programme.
Letters are then sent out to make parents aware of potential problems with their child's weight so they go and see their doctor about it if needed. But Professor Donaldson said that in the planning stage, a 'stumbling block' was the wording of the feedback letter. 'The majority of these parents felt that using the term "very overweight" in combination with the associated health risks was a better approach. Suddenly, we had stepped on eggshells.' He added: 'Obesity has become the new cancer. A word that is taboo, that intimidates, strikes fear, that promoted softer euphemisms. In effect it has become an "O" word.
At the time, the National Obesity Forum described the Government's decision not to use the word obese as 'prissy and namby pamby'.
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The word is deliberately used by fat-warriors in a derogatory way. Strictly, it refers only to grossly overweight people but has come to be used to refer to any degree of being overweight. So we now have the amusing situation where people will hear all these furious condemnations of obesity in the media but then will all be told that it does not apply to their kid -- a very confused and confusing message. One arm of officialdom is being defeated by another arm of officialdom!
Obesity is determined 'by the time a child is five'
So the tots are now in line for harassment. The results are ENTIRELY in line with genetically-determined overeating. That the kids were the same as earlier at birth means nothing. They had not by the time of birth had any influence on their nutritional intake
Child obesity is determined before the age of five, ministers were told yesterday. Scientists found that the majority of weight gain in children happens before they have started school, raising doubts over Government policies which target fatter children only when they start primary education. They urged ministers to launch more pre-school obesity initiatives. A quarter of children aged four and five in England are overweight, and around 10 per cent are classified as obese - so fat that their health is in danger.
Experts blame diets rich in fat, salt, sugar and processed foods, and say that bad dietary examples set by their parents could also be to blame. The findings, published in the journal Paediatrics, came from the EarlyBird study of 233 children from birth to puberty which were presented to ministers today. At birth, children in the study were the same weight as children born 25 years ago, the study found.
But by puberty they had gained more fat compared to children of the same age in the 1980s. Most of the excess weight gain was put on before the age of five, they found. Although the weight of a five-year-old bore no relation to his or her weight at birth, it closely predicted the weight the child would be at nine, indicating that the child's path to obesity began before school age but was not connected with birth weight. They found that before a girl gets to school, she will have gained 90 per cent of the excess weight she will have at puberty. Boys will have piled on an extra 70 per cent.
Lead researcher Professor Terry Wilkin, of Plymouth's Peninsula Medical School, said: 'When they reach five, the die seems to be cast, at least until the age of puberty.' He said he believed a poor diet probably had more effect than lack of physical exercise. 'It is entirely possible that the calorie density of food and portion sizes could be higher,' he said.
Professor Wilkin criticised Government policy which focuses on school age children, with initiatives to make school meals healthier and get children to play fewer computer games. Professor Liam Donaldson, England's chief medical officer, said soaring rates of obesity amounted to an 'impending crisis'. He told the BBC: 'It is never too late. Obesity is one of the few serious medical problems that can be reversed very, very quickly.'
The Department of Health said: 'We have made obesity prevention, nutrition and physical activity a priority in the updated Child Health Promotion Programme. 'In addition, the Healthy Start scheme provides vouchers to put towards the cost of milk, fresh fruit and vegetables or infant formula to around half a million pregnant women and children under four in low income and disadvantaged families.'
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Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here
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