A 10-year-old Spanish boy weighing 220 pounds was taken away from his family and put in state care because they would not stop overfeeding him, a Spanish newspaper reported on Friday.
In a case recalling the debate over whether an overweight British boy should be removed from his mother’s care, social services in the northern Spanish region of Asturias took the unnamed Spanish boy into care 10 months ago, according to La Nueva Espana.
Since then he has slimmed down 44 pounds. He had been in the care of his grandparents, who had been warned that the way they were feeding him was causing serious health problems. They are now allowed to visit him.
“You can’t trivialize this and say the boy was taken away because he was fat. This is a health issue,” the paper quoted a regional government official as saying.
The boy’s school alerted authorities about his obesity, which is a product of over-eating and not any underlying health problem.
Earlier this year, British social services decided to allow an 8-year-old boy to stay with his mother, even though she refused to stop feeding him junk food which had taken his weight nearly 200 pounds.
As in Britain, obesity is an increasing problem in Spain. and one in three Spanish children is overweight, a recent study showed.
