An eight-year-old boy who weighs 14 stone (89kg) could be taken into care unless he goes on a diet immediately.

Connor McCreaddie, from Wallsend, weighs more than three times the average child of his age and cannot manage the seven-minute walk to school without wheezing or vomiting.

His weight has prompted the authorites to hold a child protection conference. His mother, Nicola McKeown, 35, and Connor’s grandmother will face officials from social services, nurses, a consultant paediatrician, an education welfare officer, the deputy head teacher of Connor’s school and an officer from Northumbria Police.

Ms McKeown is to fight for her son to continue living with her. She said: “I feel like there is nothing I can do. If he gets taken into care it will be the death of me. I try to be strict and limit what he eats.”

The child, who has been followed by a TV crew for a month, features in tonight’s edition of Tonight with Trevor McDonald. He has been bullied at school and is exempt from wearing uniform as his mother cannot find items to fit him.

She said: “It worries me sick because I can hear him choking on a night time and he gets nosebleeds frequently.” Doctors had found no medical reason for his obesity, she said. “There’s no diabetes and no asthma. They haven’t tested for genetic disorders, but in a way I hope he has a disease or syndrome, so that he can be given treatment that will make it all stop. I get angry because people feed him in the street. I try and do all the hard groundwork and then people feed him like he is a pet.”

North Tyneside Council and North Tyneside Primary Care Trust said that they could not comment on a specific case but added that they shared the concerns over Connor’s health and would work with the family.

Weighty issue

14 Connor’s weight in stone

15 His weight at his heaviest

9 His weight aged 5

3 Number of stone he has put on in a year

5 Size (in years) of clothes he was wearing at 18 months

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