Head girl, 17, died weighing just six stone after trying to hide four-year battle with anorexia from her parents

From Daily Mail

Struggle: Schoolgirl Charlotte Seddon, who struggled with anorexia for four years, pictured in 2011

A former head girl died aged 17 after struggling with anorexia for four years.

Charlotte Seddon, who was described as ‘intelligent, self-assured and popular’, tried to hide the effects of the illness from her parents.

She only revealed her true feelings in her journals, which were discovered after her death, an inquest heard.

Charlotte wrote how she felt trapped in a cycle of losing weight, exercise, calorie counting, bouts of depression and purging herself.

The teenager would refuse to have dinner with her family, claiming she had already eaten, but then would go without food.

Despite her illness, Charlotte, who had a twin sister, Abby, won many awards at school, including student of the year after achieving the best GCSE results of her peers at Shuttleworth College in Padiham, Lancashire.

In her final year at school she was also head girl, and was nominated for the Young Burnley Achiever Award for her voluntary work.

When she died last November, Charlotte weighed only six stone and had a seriously weakened heart, the inquest heard.

Battle: Charlotte weighed just six stone when she died last November

She had been discharged from an inpatient clinic only a few days before.

Her family, who live in Padiham, have urged other parents to keep an eye out for signs of the condition in their own children, such as avoiding eating and disappearing after meals.

Charlotte’s mother, Corinne, 48, said: ‘They are very good at hiding it. At the start you just go along with it because you don’t want to upset them.’

Healthier: Charlotte at a more healthy weight collecting an award in Burnley in 2010

Her father Stephen, also 48, said his daughter was highly intelligent and wanted to go to university and become an art therapist.

Mr Seddon added: ‘It’s a tragic loss for us, it was very sudden and such a shock. We have learned about her condition from what she left for us to read.’

Her brother Daniel, 23, told the hearing: ‘The condition she had meant that she believed herself to be in control and she would give out those messages to her family.’

The coroner’s court in Burnley heard Charlotte developed self-esteem and eating behaviour problems at 12, and was treated as an outpatient at a specialist unit. Last June she became so poorly that she agreed to be admitted as an inpatient at The Priory in Altrincham, Cheshire. She was discharged in November, but a few days afterwards was found dead at her home.

Post-mortem tests revealed Charlotte’s heart weighed only 190g (7oz), and the muscles round it had been weakened by a lack of nutrients. A normal heart weighs around 320g (11oz).

Recording a narrative verdict, coroner Richard Taylor said: ‘Charlotte’s family have painted a picture of an intelligent, self-assured young lady who was overcome by a terrible illness.’

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Child of five taken from parents for being obese: Social workers say they didn't do enough to control weight

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By Liz Hull

The most recent NHS figures show that one in ten children starting primary school is obese. (File picture)

A five-year-old has become one of the youngest children to be taken into care for being obese, it emerged last night.

Social workers decided the parents were doing too little to bring the youngster’s weight under control.

The child, whose identity is protected by law, had a body mass index of 22.6 – clinically obese for a five-year-old.

He or she is thought to have weighed around 4st 4lb – a stone and a half more than average.

The decision was taken by officials at Tameside Council in Greater Manchester.

The local authority has also taken a 14-year-old into care, according to figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

The teenager had a BMI of 30.3, giving a weight of 13 stone – five stone more than average.

Another child was removed by Sunderland council, but officials refused to provide details of their age or weight, claiming it would breach data protection laws.

The Freedom of Information request sent to all local authorities asked how many children, in the past financial year, have been taken into care where obesity was cited as a contributing factor.

The vast majority responded and where care proceedings were instigated, gave general neglect as the reason.

In the previous year, 2009/10, four children were taken into care for obesity reasons: three from the London borough of Lewisham aged three, ten and 15, and an 11-year-old from Northumberland.

Sir Liam Donaldson, warned that healthcare chiefs would look at removing children from their families if they became so obese their health was at risk

In September this year, social workers in Dundee provoked outrage by removing four obese children from their parents.

Three girls aged 11, seven and one and a boy of five were placed into care to be ‘fostered without contact’ or adopted.

The most recent NHS figures show that one in ten children starting primary school is obese.

Overweight children are at far higher risk of heart disease, strokes, diabetes, asthma and cancer in later life.

Experts predict that obesity will cost the Health Service up to £6.3billion a year by 2015.

Sir Liam Donaldson, the former Chief Medical Officer, warned in 2006 that healthcare chiefs would look at removing children from their families if they became so obese their health was at risk.

The first reported case came in 2007 when an eight-year-old girl from West Cumbria was taken into care weighing ten stone.

In 2008, seven children were removed from homes in England. These included a six-year-old boy from Derby, an eight-year-old girl from Cumbria who had to wear size 16 clothes, and children from Lincolnshire, Wolverhampton and Tower Hamlets in London.

‘We sincerely hope that such occasions would be rare…but make the point that this would be the automatic response to a child at the other extreme – severe malnutrition'

NATIONAL OBESITY FORUM

A spokesman for the National Obesity Forum said it supported placing obese children into care, but only after everything possible had been done to try to reduce their weight.

‘We sincerely hope that such occasions would be rare…but make the point that this would be the automatic response to a child at the other extreme – severe malnutrition,’ the spokesman said.

A spokesman for Tameside Council said: ‘The point at which obesity turns into a child-protection issue is a complex and difficult area, and in these two cases there were other determining factors that led to the children being placed in local authority care.

‘Parents should be supported to address their child’s obesity, and social workers should only act if parents fail to engage with the proposed plan to improve their child’s safety and wellbeing.’

David Simmonds, of the Local Government Association’s children and young people board, said: ‘Social workers use their professional judgment about how best to keep children from harm.’

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