DE is an 8-year old boy who has been identified at school as being overweight, and the school has offered extra fitness classes for him and a number of other children

DE is an 8-year old boy who has been identified at school as being overweight, and the school has offered extra fitness classes for him and a number of other children. He does not want to go as he feels these would make him be known in class as a ‘fatty’.

The local social worker calls in his parents to discuss the risks to the child’s health. The parents are struggling financially and are from a different ethnicity and cultural background, with poor English.

Should the social worker tell the parents that they must encourage their son to take up the fitness program suggested by the school in the interests of his health?

Or should the social worker instruct the parents to reassure him and make him be proud of his body as it is?

(Adapted from Kerridge et al. 2013: 640)