Too Fat to Love?

(Published on Dad-O-Matic, 13 January 2009)

The Government are frequently heard to proclaim that 'families' are the most important thing in life. We all know that a stable family environment is good for the development of happy children.

We also know the statistics - that children in Local Authority Care tend to perform less well in school, garner fewer qualifications and have lower chances in life than those from a family environment.

The importance of adoption cannot be overestimated. Adopted children are rescued from the State care system and, if the system is implemented properly, placed in loving environments where they can flourish. That, surely, is better than the alternative stagnant future for a child in care.

Yet it would seem that to Leeds City Council, the future well-being of a child is less important than whether the parents eat All-Bran.

Parents banned from giving a child the loving home all children need. Not because they're alcoholics, smokers, drug addicts or benefits sponges - but because the prospective Dad is overweight. It's revolting. Do the worthies at Leeds City Council really think that the love of a child is dependent upon the body shape of the parent?

Or is it just that their Nannying imperative is now so strong, their need to ensure that the lost kids of Britain, already abandoned (for whatever reason) by one set of parents, deserve only the unfeeling bureaucracy of the State as a future?

The Righteous of Leeds City Council should hang their heads in shame for the child they have just condemned.