As featured in a number of news stories today. Soviet Child Wrestlers
Can we count just how many ways this is offensive?
[list=1]
[li]Any child that size at that age has either a serious medical problem or parents who are killing him.[/li][li]Let’s make 4 year olds fight for a bit of fun![/li][li]Let’s make it a funny news story to liven up a slow news day![/li][li]Hey kid! Your weight is a good thing and not likely to kill you before you reach 30. Keep it up![/li][li]Hey kid! You’re famous as being a bit of a freak![/li][/list=1]
You know, this kind of reminds me of those warlike societies in history that train their children for combat practically as soon as they can walk. I’ve heard that the Spartans were very big on this (at the very least, athleticism).
I don’t see the problem. The kids are already fat. It doesn’t seem that they were force fed for the publicity.
It sounds friendly, it ended in a draw, then the kids went for ice cream.
Then again, I’ve spectated at a wrestling event for the disabled.
My favorite match up:
The blind, limited mobility kid vs. the paraplegic, with less mobility, kid
The kids seemed to be having a great time. It was the only time they were allowed to get down and really play without accomidations for their disability.
Calling this child abuse devalues the term for real child abuse. Whatever negatives there are to this, at least they enjoyed themselves, sounds like. Not quite in the same league as beating or raping them, is it?
[sub]…rassafrassin European weights and measures…[/sub]
Anyway, put me in the “big fuckin’ deal” camp. There’s not exactly a lot of depth in that “article,” but I hardly see how it qualifies as child abuse. Little kids wrestling? So what? Kids wrestle all the time. Is it 'cause they’re fat? It’s not like their parents are breeding them big for some underground mafia baby wrestling circuit. It’s two fat kids romping around, having a bit of fun. The most objectionable thing about this story is that anyone considered it remotely newsworthy.
So. Any bets on how many more posts until someone yells at the OP for calling overweight kids “freaks”?
Until the Russian manager comes in with a steel chair, whacks the 4H kids while the ref isn’t looking, and the Russians get the pinfalls and the belts…
Well of course not, there degrees to everything. However, the diet this child is on, if he doesn’t have a medical condition, will give him health problems his whole life and eventually kill him. Sure as apples are apples. If that doesn’t count as abuse, what does?
Except that’s not what I said. I was paraphrasing the news story and meant that these children are being treated like sideshow freaks.
However, if you want to take it like that. I’ve no problem saying that a 8 stone 11 pound (123 pounds) 4 year old is freakishly abnormal.
