There is NO excuse in my book. If it is not genetic, then buck up mom- cook healthy and quit buying processed food!

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- The mother of a 196-pound eight-year-old boy, who could be taken into care because of his weight, has defended her refusal to stop feeding him junk food.

Single mum Nicola McKeown says her son Connor McCreaddie refuses to eat healthy foods, such as fruit and vegetables.

"He likes processed foods and if I try him with any salad, vegetables, fruit, he just refuses to eat it or spits it out," she told BBC Radio on Monday.

"When a child won't eat anything else, you've got to feed them what they like."

The 35-year-old mum -- who has sought help to try to reduce Connor's weight -- rejected a suggestion that she put a lock on the fridge.

"I wouldn't go that far," she said. "That's not the way to do it, starving your child."

However, Connor has lost one-and-a-half stone following advice from health workers and a dietician at the start of the year.

The family, from Wallsend, Newcastle, face a child protection conference with North Tyneside Council on Tuesday.

The last resort would be for social workers to put him into care, but McKeown is confident she can help her son lose weight.

Former British Olympic runner Roger Black said Connor's case was "very extreme" -- but that it highlighted the need for exercise to be pushed higher up the school agenda.

"What's interesting for me, and everything I've read over the weekend about this issue, it's always been about diet; it's about what he (Connor) eats. There's no mention of exercise," he told the BBC.

"Many, many children in this country are growing up doing very, very little exercise and if you create a culture of young children not used to doing exercise on a daily basis then these problems do happen."

Black has recently spent a term in an inner London comprehensive school to try to encourage 12-year-olds to become more active as part of the run-up to the 2012 Olympics.

"The project I've just been involved with is not about creating Olympic medallists for 2012, it's about encouraging young people to do more exercise in school time," he added.

"It absolutely should be compulsory that children do more exercise than our children are doing now, because it is staggering that some children in this country are doing less than an hour's exercise a week in school."