Child Obesity Equal to Abuse or Neglect?

DV8 · Post by **DV8** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 4:45 pm

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/wei ... sp=usat.me

the article above deals with the issue of children becoming morbidly obese, the parents' culpability and whether it constitutes abuse/neglect. My first response is to say it is, except in cases where it's something like a thyroid condition that was caused by something outside of the parents' sphere of influence. I'd be interested to hear what your opinions are, especially those who are parents themselves and perhaps have to deal with children with obesitas.

DV8 · Post by **DV8** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 5:00 pm

Okay, I've moved on the fence with this. It's a systemic problem, so unless everyone is neglecting their children, it must be bigger than just the neglect of an individual parent.

Serious Paul · Post by **Serious Paul** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 7:10 pm

Like anything it's hard to generalize. In a general situation, where parents just ignore their kids I think it's neglect, possibly abuse. But obviously we can find specific exceptions, and situations that don't fit the mold.

3278 · Post by **3278** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 9:36 pm

This is a terribly complicated issue, which means the fact that it's taken this long for the nation to even begin considering it is all the more tragic. Some of these cases are, I think, pretty simple - if your child weighs 500 pounds and doesn't have a health condition which causes excessive weight gain, you fucked up bad - but many borderline cases are much more arguable. Certainly, we don't want to get into a situation where parents must keep their children within certain BMIs or certain height/weight ratios or anything of the sort, but I think accepting that morbid obesity [as well as starvation] can represent abuse and neglect is an obvious and correct course of action. The health risk would need to be reasonably clear and present in order to justify court action, but...well, when your kid is 14 and weighs 555 pounds, and you skip the court date and try to flee with him, you're really asking for court action, you crazy bitch.

And not to be a dick, but it's not even remotely surprising to me that this happened in South Carolina, nor that as far as I can tell, she's a single parent. Nor that she's sold the documentary rights to her child's story already. Nor that when given the opportunity for her son to attend treatment programs, she chose not to. Nothing about this story is surprising to me, which is too bad.

Serious Paul · Post by **Serious Paul** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 9:51 pm

And now having read the article, I'd say this is clearly a case of neglect that crossed the line well into abuse territory. I'd love to see her lose the money she stands to make from this, but that may just be petty spite on my part which doesn't always equal legal right?

Crazy Elf · Post by **Crazy Elf** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:47 pm

Depends, really. You shouldn't expect kids to be thin all the time, but if they're morbidly obese then they have a problem. I've met gymnast kids that look pretty chubby, but they can still flip about without much of a problem. When they grow up they're not going to be fat anymore.

Morbidly obese children, though, is a big fucking problem. If your child is fat, take away their Playstation and tell them to go outside. Oh yeah, and feed them something other than McDonalds.