A seven-year-old girl is starved to a bag of bones.

A starving girl jumped from the second-floor balcony where she had been forced to live by her father and stepmother to get biscuits from a nearby convenience store.

Panyu District police in Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province, are now contacting the seven-year-old's mother, who is believed to be living in Hong Kong, after she refused to go back home, according to a report in yesterday's Guangzhou Daily.

Xing Yutong was found by neighbors at the convenience store last Wednesday. They said the normally chubby girl had become extremely thin.

Her father and stepmother said they had been punishing the girl because she was "too naughty" and picky about her food. Her stepmother told police Xing had been spoiled by her grandparents, saying the girl expected to "live in luxury" and "wanted to eat hamburgers and drink milk."

Xing's parents divorced when she was three. Her mother, a Hong Kong resident, left for Hong Kong with Xing's little sister and her own parents, leaving the girl with her father in Guangdong Province.

Xing said she had been forbidden to leave the balcony, even to go to the toilet, and was given very little to eat.