Obesity op boys 'failed by society'

Tam Fry, of the National Obesity Forum, said the surgery would have been a "last resort" if the boys' weight was life-threatening.

The operations, believed to have been carried out on the NHS at Sheffield Children's Hospital, are an example of society's failure to understand the problem of obesity in the UK, Mr Fry said.

One of the boys had the surgery in 2006 and the other one had the operation last year, according to the Daily Mirror.

Mr Fry, who chairs the Child Growth Foundation, said: "It is a horrendous indictment on society that we should ever allow these children to get this fat. We have simply in this country failed, all of us collectively, society has failed to really understand the obesity-endemic environment we now live in.

"Why social services, why doctors, why nurses have not triggered alarm bells years ago because this kind of thing does not happen overnight. It is a great failing, the sooner we understand that, the better-off the children of the future will be."

National Institute for Clinical Excellence guidelines stated that such surgery for children should only be carried out in "really extreme" cases.

Mr Fry said: "It is something which is certainly not desirable but in some instances where life is threatened by the size of the child then this kind of surgery is appropriate.

"Clearly if it was life-threatening then that's what the doctors thought would be necessary. It is absolutely a last resort."

A spokesman for Sheffield Children's NHS Foundation Trust said: "The issue of obesity in children continues to be a significant problem in the UK.

In Sheffield, we have a great deal of expertise in relation to paediatric weight management and endocrinology, combined with the necessary skills in bariatric surgery. Any surgery of this kind is only carried out in extreme cases."