Maternal food restriction is associated with the development of obesity in offspring. This study examined how maternal undernutrition in sheep affects the fetal hypothalamic glucocorticoid receptor (GR) and the appetite-regulating neuropeptides, proopiomelanocortin (POMC) and neuropeptide Y, which it regulates. In fetuses from ewes undernourished from -60 to +30 d around conception, there was increased histone H3K9 acetylation (1.63-fold) and marked hypomethylation (62% decrease) of the POMC gene promoter but no change in POMC expression. In the same group, acetylation of histone H3K9 associated with the hypothalamic GR gene was increased 1.60-fold and the GR promoter region was hypomethylated (53% decrease). In addition, there was a 4.7-fold increase in hypothalamic GR expression but no change in methylation of GR gene expression in the anterior pituitary or hippocampus. Interestingly, hypomethylation of both POMC and GR promoter markers in fetal hypothalami was also identified after maternal undernutrition from -60 to 0 d and -2 to +30 d. In comparison, the Oct4 gene, was hypermethylated in both control and underfed groups. Periconceptional undernutrition is therefore associated with marked epigenetic changes in hypothalamic genes. Increase in GR expression in the undernourished group may contribute to fetal programming of a predisposition to obesity, via altered GR regulation of POMC and neuropeptide Y. These epigenetic changes in GR and POMC in the hypothalamus may also predispose the offspring to altered regulation of food intake, energy expenditure, and glucose homeostasis later in life.

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Historically trade unions were in the forefront of social reform, campaigning against child labour, against the 12‐hour day and for free public education and universal suffrage. But with their achievement of great power and influence in the modern societies they have been less sensitive to the present day exploited and oppressed — to women and guestworkers and all those foreign in colour and language, in customs, sex and tastes. To be sure these groups are often unfamiliar with unions, and reluctant to join them even if invited because of the fear of employer reprisal and their weak position in the labour market. Characterised as they have been by transiency, dependency and divided loyalties, the unions long wished them away or accepted them if they behaved like native men, that is to say in an understandable way and with acceptable rationality. Although the similarities between the problems of women and foreign workers or workers of colour in the labour markets of the industrialised countries is an intriguing study, we shall here look specifically at the case of women, recognising the while that their problems are not unique and their oppression not unprecedented.

Despite being a contested and imprecise notion, the term ‘highly resistant families’ has grown in usage over the past few years. It refers, at one end of a spectrum, to parents who have been falsely accused of maltreating a child and to violent, even dangerous individuals, at the other. To complicate matters, the notion of false or ‘disguised’ compliance describes some family members who may confuse practitioners by appearing to co‐operate while merely going through the motions. Excluding parents who have been falsely accused, resistant or reluctant family members are likely to find considerable difficultly ‘mentalizing’– a concept similar to empathy, derived from contemporary applications of attachment‐based research – which we discuss in this paper. From an innovative study by Forrester et al., we note en passant that empathy was rarely observed when social workers were asked to enact a child protection referral in vignettes conducted by actors playing the role of parent. We summarize key neurobiological research underpinning pioneering new insights into empathy and mentalization, along with their implications for child protection social workers. We conclude by briefly outlining a promising mentalization‐based intervention already proving to be effective with reluctant or resistant parents.