Doctors are calling for obesity to be possible grounds for children being taken away from their parents.

The British Medical Association will be asked at its annual meeting later this month to back the designation of obesity in under-12s as an act of neglect.

Rotherham GP Dr Matt Capehorn put forward the motion as a result of his own experience of running an obesity clinic.

He said yesterday he and his colleagues were concerned by a discrepancy in the way society, the medical profession and the courts treated an obese child compared with a malnourished child. "There is outrage if a child is skin and bone but it only happens in extreme cases with obese children," he said. However, parents in Scotland who let their children get too fat already risk having them removed by a children's hearing.

Ruth Stark, professional officer for Scotland of the British Association of Social Workers and a social worker herself, said: "Overweight and obesity may be considered part of poor parental care, and would be part of an overall assessment as to whether a child needs to go into care. But it would have to be in the context of other circumstances. There would have to be something else as well, but it could be considered a major factor."

A survey of consultant paediatricians by the BBC found that obesity had played a part in at least 20 child protection cases across the UK in the last year. "It would not surprise me if some of these cases were in Scotland," said Ruth Stark. "I have been involved in one such case myself.

"We are conscious of the health component when a child is needing help.

"I think if the family were not helping a child to work on the issues of weight, I could see it happening that the child could be taken into care. After all, the child's life could be at stake. We would take the child into care if they were malnourished, but allowing them to become obese is also putting their life and health under threat."

The Scottish Executive said: "These cases are all dealt with on a case-by-case basis."

But the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health expressed caution and said using care orders in these circumstances would be very rare. Dr Penny Gibson, advisor on childhood obesity for the college, said it would be an extremely unusual situation and would be in the context of parents who did not understand the seriousness of the situation and what needed to be done.

"They should be helped and supported to understand that and to help do the right thing for their child. Very occasionally that might need some statutory intervention but I think it will be very rare."