I knew there was a fat agenda. I just knew!
Our official motto is “We let no comet go uncaptured”.
What gave it away? The reclassification of carb-loaded junk food as a vegetable? The FDA approved name change of molecularly manipulated high fructose corn syrup to corn sugar? Was it the sudden influx of reality shows like Fat Actress, Big, and Big Sexy? Twenty-odd years of spin and wordplay in which we learn that big beautiful woman, zaftig, rubenesque, curvy, and “real woman” are euphemisms for overweight and/or obese? Or could it the insistence that a 218 pound 8 year old child with a BMI of 57 should be allowed to remain in the home of a parent who can’t be bothered to attend to his health concerns, cooperate with social services year long attempt to intervene, or do everything in her power to prevent his being placed into foster care? Enough evidence of a fat agenda for you, or would you like more examples of the wholesale rejection of reasonable standards of a healthy lifestyle? By all means, lets continue minimize the risks and render the major contributor to diabetes, heart disease, sleep apnea and skyrocketing medical/insurance costs as attractive and harmless as possible.
Good Lord this kid isn’t carrying an extra 25 pounds. His young frame is hauling around 140 pounds more than he should. He weighs three times what other 8 year old boys weigh. Go ahead and avoid calling it abuse and neglect if you feel those terms are too strong, but how in the hell can you call that love?
Confession: I only read the first half of the thread. Apologies in advance.
My mom is a child custody attorney specializing in abuse, so I’ve heard it all. That said, I think the case in the OP counts as abuse. Or at the very least, neglect. I think that removal to a healthier household is the right move. Kids that fat grow up to be teens that fat, who then grow up to be adults that fat. The cycle is almost impossible to break at that point. Why would you do that to a child? Why would you allow that to be done to a child? There are life-threatening consequences to being that fat.
I consider childhood obesity to be child abuse. I know not everyone does, and those who disagree with me may do so vigorously, but I’ve thought about it a lot and I stand beside my position.
You seem to be conflating a bunch of unrealted stuff to what this woman did and our reactions to the state’s action in a really wierd way. :eek:
No-one, in this thread at least, is minimizing the health risks of being severely obese, let alone arguing he’s “rubenesque”. Nor is there any evidence that this unfortunate incident is in any way related to some sort of societal acceptance of obesity as desireable (I think that is what you are arguing about).
The argument is that there is of necessity a high threshold for the specific intervention of fostering and, on these facts assuming they are true, that threshold is not met.
There is no need to review reality shows, the naming of corn syrup, or 20 year conspiracies by fat agendists to argue this point … or at least, so I would have thought …
The two are simply unrelated. A parent may well lack the discipline to prevent their kid from over-eating to a grotesque extent, but yet still “love” that child.
This leads to the problem that such “abuse” is, apparently, very widespread, so as to make removal somewhat impractical as a general remedy. As previoulsy noted, 12% of the children in that state of the same grade are, apparently, classified as severely obese.
No, just following your snarky lead. You and levdrakon made the leap from fat apologist to fat agenda, I merely confirmed the existence of same. It’s telling that you claim a child who weighs 3x less than he should and a child who weighs 3x more than he should aren’t suffering from equivalent neglect. According to the article, this mother is a substitute teacher pursuing higher education, so at least in her case, ignorance of discipline and nutrition cannot be claimed. A complete lack of commitment to this kid’s well-being: that one is evident.
A loving mother would not aid and abet the gaining of 150 excess pounds and stand by while her son struggles to breathe. A loving mother would not fail to adhere to a treatment plan and allow social services to take her child.
Ya it’s not about whether the mother loves or doesn’t love the child. If she can’t provide a safe home then the child needs to be taken away from her. It’s very sad, but the alternative is even moreso. Hopefully she can appreciate the wisdom of social services intervening someday by knowing that the child she loved was better off for it. (and hopefully she can just get her act together and get the kid back sooner than later)
I wonder what the position is regarding anorexia – if a mother has a 16-year old daughter weighing 80 pounds, do they take the child away?
I’m sorry, but the “snark” is entirely on your end - when you attempted, for reasons of your own, to label those who disagree with you “fat apologists”. Never mind the bizzare screed in your last post, which frankly was too off-the-wall strange to be recognizable as “snark”.
It is telling that you cannot see that a child who is grossly overweight is not in the same situation as a child who is being deliberately starved. The difference, of course, is that absent serious medical problems no child is going to starve him or herself deliberately - they will beg and plead for food. Is there any evidence that this overweight child begged and pleaded not to be fed? Legally and morally a parent is responsible for the feeding of their child, but as the foster services are allegedly discovering in this very case (and what most parents already know), leaving out the self-will of the child himself is a mistake in practice.
Given the resources it is easy to remedy a starving child - they are usually happy to eat (given that the starvation is not so advanced as to make eating problematic). It is more difficult to remedy an obese child, particularly one who, apparenty, will sneak food if given the chance. The two situations are not equivalent in terms of “abuse”.
As I said, the two issues are simply unrelated. Love does not equal sense.
Where do we draw the line on any abuse case? It’s not verbal abuse to tell a 9 year old to stop acting stupid, but it is if you tell them that they’re unlovable fucking retards. It’s not emotional abuse to make your 12 year old to clean the kitchen or do his laundry, but it is if you expect him to clean, cook, and run the entire household every day. And it’s not medical neglect if you give your chubby, 90 pound 8 year old a candy bar, but to let that same kid eat his way to 218 pounds after *CPS has given you fair warning *…yeah, I call that abuse. And so does CPS, apparently.
I’m sure CPS has flexible guidelines for determining what constitutes verbal, physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. I don’t know what those lines are, but I’m willing to go out on a limb and assume that, as a long standing government agency, they have at least a rudimentary plan in place. They probably also have a guideline for medical neglect. This boy’s situation fits the bill. And I see no reason to argue that.
I’m interested to know, Kearsen, where you think this slippery slope might lead? What do you fear CPS might start doing? Because this isn’t a case of them getting involved in the health of our nation, or declaring a nanny state, or battling obesity. It’s simply a case of them removing a neglected boy from his home. It’s the same thing CPS does all the time, but with a big 'ole buzzword behind it.
I don’t really fear CPS because it would only really affect me if it pertained to MY kids. However, as someone stated upthread, we as a nation of fat asses are growing fat ass kids too. Is this wrong? Most definitely, should the state institute policies to help? I can see where they might (bring back P.E. /recess daily) , fix the god damn food pyramid, endorse physical activity but injecting yourself into the raising of children with a line this subjective (that is the key here) is a problem waiting to happen.
As someone else said earlier the “severely obese” ratio of children is already at 12%, when does CPS start looking at and taking those kids?
I completely agree on the premise that someone somewhere needs to do something but it doesn’t need to be the government.
CPS couldn’t possibly remove all 12%. It’s not plausible on a physical or financial level.
In this case, the government (specifically CPS) isn’t doing anything about the obesity problem. They aren’t implementing programs to help kids exercise or eat better. They were simply alerted to one case of neglect, in which they gave the mother a year to get it together and care for her son. She did not. They removed him. I think that’s more than fair.
Something does need to be done about the obesity issue in America. I honestly don’t care if the solution comes from the government or the private sector, so long as it works. But that’s not CPS’s job. Their job is to remove children who are in abusive or neglectful homes. That’s all they are doing here.
I’m not denying it’s a huge problem. Nor am I saying I have the answer, because I don’t. But it is my opinion that it’s something like abuse or neglect to allow a child to become so morbidly obese. I think it sets the child up for a lifetime of health and psychological problems, puts the child on the stage for bullying and other teasing, and a whole lot of other things that I don’t feel like listing. It’s bad parenting, and I think it reaches the level of abuse/neglect when it gets to these extremes.
By the way, I started a thread on a similar topic (obese child/child abuse) back in April if anyone wanted to look at it.
And those parents who beat their children black and blue, scald them with hot irons, starve them for days, all in the name of “disciplining” them… they, too, “love” them.
But proper parenting requires parents to be adults and act rationally.
Going by the cited reports, he lost weight already, and has a doctor (who not only treats his sleep apnoe, but also testified about the danger to his health his current weight poses).
So I think we can rule out medical reasons that are beyond control.
No, that is not the case. This child has a doctor, and has lost weight, and then gained it. It’s not a medical condition that made the child overweight - or underweight in the contrary example - it’s purely behaviour.
Does the mother stand by and watch, or does she help with the treatment? The same as with this kid: the mother didn’t help the child for one year.
A child doesn’t get to 200 pounds overnight; a 16-year old doesn’t get to 80 pounds overnight: in both cases, parents need to get medical expert help much earlier. And the kid wasn’t removed overnight, either.
If the medical help - at a special clinic for obese/ anorexic children - starts to take, but the child worsens back at home (which is very often the case): then obviously there is not medical condition out of control, but a behaviour problem, and the child needs to be put in a better enviroment.
Are you seriously claiming that beating, scalding with hot irons, and starvation are equivalent to allowing a child to become obese? 
Except of course I did not (please note the “absent serious medical problems” in my post that you quoted).
As I said: the two situations are not equivalent - when we are dealing with an otherwise healthy child who is (a) starved or (b) allowed to grow grossly obese, both through parental actions.
Taliking about issues such as anorexia is a pure red herring. There is no eqivalent medical condition that forces a child to over-eat, and if there was, it could be controlled by limiting access to food. Once again, the two are not equivalent.
Where’s the evidence that I, or indeed anyone, “fails to grasp” the severity of the kid’s condition? That we “fail to accept” your arguments, so you must wale the stuffing out of the same straw-man over and over again - in the hope that perhaps this time it persuades?
Except, of course, that allegedly the decision has done the kid no good at all, and there is exactly no evidence it will in future. Little details like that.
You may “trust the professionals”, but what about the folks who actually, you know, drafted the relevant laws, which tend to require harm of an immediate nature before taking this sort of action?