This thread got me thinking:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=185295
For those who don’t wanna click, we’re discussing a 4 year old that weighs 80 pounds.
Let’s pretend for a moment that this kid doesn’t have a thyroid problem or any other problem making him gain the weight.
Could this be considered child abuse, in a sense?
And before anyone accuses me of fat bashing or the like, lemme preface this by saying that I myself am fat, have been all my life. Why? Because I chose to be, that’s why, and my mother was too tired to fight me on it.
I’m not saying it’d be outright abuse, but could letting a child eat whatever he wants, whenever he wants, especially at such a young age, be considered gross negligence?
If this kid doesn’t have a health problem, he sure as hell didn’t get to weigh 80 pounds at 4 years of age by eating salads all day. Who’s to blame here, though?
I think parents have a responsibility to see to their child’s health; letting a child eat what he wants, whenever he wants it, regardless of how much/how often, is no better than letting a child do whatever he wants. If a kid wants to wander into traffic, parents are responsible for preventing it; if a kid wants to eat more than he needs, his parents are responsible for preventing that, too.
And if a parent lost or injured his/her child due to gross negligence re: wandering into traffic, he would be held legally liable for that.
I see no difference between that and allowing your child to become seriously obese; you are endangering his health and his happiness, and possibly even his life. Kids are totally reliant upon their parents for everything; it’s cruel to allow them to indulge themselves to the point that they injure their health, because it isn’t their responsibility to police themselves; it’s yours.
I’d call it child abuse. This poor child is going to have huge problems for, probably, the rest of his life. His obesity will have physical, mental, social and sexual effects. The parents have a responsibility to avoid this just as they would avoid the child losing an arm in an accident.
If there is no other underlying cause for the obesity (I just came from that other thread) then parents do have a responsibility to care for their child’s health.
The problem here is where with children does it become obesity? I remember my brother when he went through puberty and he packed on a lot of weight then almost overnight sprouted from the fat kid with man boobs to the lanky teenager.
Yeah I know the 2 year old on Oprah or whatever that was 60 pounds and looked like the michelin man was definitely morbidly obese… I just worry that if we make a line in the sand that well meaning parents would starve kids unintentionally (feed them too healthy a diet … kids need whole milk until age 2 and stuff like that) to not cross it.
I think though if kids that young have an eating problem there are other underlying problems in the household that also need to be dealt with. All my weight problems stem from issues that do not involve food at all but I use food to cope.
I’d hate to use words that strong. Child abuse…I don’t know. A rotten thing to do to your kid? Yes.
I’d call it child abuse. Its just as bad as letting a kid out to do whatever they want. Their life is going to be MAJORLY affected by their parent’s decision to let them eat excessively (if there is no other medical reason).
That’s a big pretend. My assumption would be that the child does have a medical problem which may be difficult or impossible to diagnose. Very little is known about the causes of obsesity, and as anyone who struggles with a weight problem can tell you, it’s extremely difficult to get your body to weigh what you think it should when it wants to weigh a lot more.
I have a friend who was obese as a child (and still is). Her parents tried everything. They eventually locked the cabinets and refrigerator — she started eating the catfood, which wasn’t locked up.
Why not show some compassion and sympathy for the woman and her overweight child, instead of looking to condemn her for a serious crime, when you don’t know the first thing about the situation?
I wouldn’t call it child abuse. I’d call it bad parenting. Anyone who isn’t guilty of making bad decisions in the quest for the functioning human being can cast the first stone. I’m thin and so’s my kid.
IIRC there was a case in the U.S. not long ago where a toddler was taken away fro his mom and put into protective custody because health officials were seriously alarmed by the kid’s weight.
His mother was granted visitation but then got in deep doo-doo when she showed up with a purse full of chocolate bars.
In Michigan, parental rights were terminated for a couple whose 3 year old weighed 120 lbs!!! The average 3 year old is about 33 lbs.
What Eats_Crayons said.
Then there was a thread, I remember, about a 13 year old girl who died of severe obesity and her parents were charged with neglect. She couldn’t get out of bed, she had sores and feces caked on her skin and stank of urine. I’d say that’s bad parenting, and most likely abuse!
There’s overweight, and then there’s morbidly obese. Why can’t people realize that moderation is the key?
Unless there is some weird medical condition at work here, I would consider that to be a form of child abuse.
Look at what these parents did to their daughter-
http://www.salon.com/sept97/mothers/obese970922.html
“Christina Corrigan, 13, was found dead last November on the living room floor of her El Cerrito, Calif., home. Her body was covered with sores, and feces were encrusted within the folds of her skin. Her room smelled like urine. Food containers were strewn around her body. And according to the coroner’s report, there was evidence that insects had been feeding on her flesh. At the time of her death, she weighed 680 pounds.”
In the case I mentioned above, the kid lost 70 lbs within a relatively short time living with a foster family. There was no medical reason for his obesity, just horrendous nutrition (and upon looking at some news sites that mention the story, that kid appears to be the same one whose mom tried to visit with chocolate bars).
That being said, a girl was taken away from her family in Albuquerque for the same reason – however she is also extremely tall. The story I read said that doctors coulnd’t yet find a medical reason for her size, but her parents insist she eats properly and her unusual hieght suggests that something physiological is amiss – hopefully that will get sorted out justly.
I remember at the hieght of the Michigan story, the chocolate-bar-mom had to take lessons on proper nutrition, but there were strange quotes in the press of her lamenting the fact that she was denying him happiness by withholding sweets. She seemed seriously distressed that no one would let her give him doughnuts.
It made me wonder if it was some strange form of “Munchausen by Proxy.”
Well, that’s quite a bit different from just having a fat kid.
I think in this instance, it would be abuse. But for your basic fat kid, I think the term “bad parenting” would be more appropriate.
Don’t forget, too, that there is often a psychological component to non-physiological obesity. The child equates food with comfort, love, or whatever, overeats, and gains weight. There can be some very nasty vicious circles set up. The child feels unloved and disapproved of because he’s overweight, eats for comfort, continues to gain weight, and so forth.
I think that school nurses and pediatricians need to be aware of this, and to be prepared to ask about it, and to be able to refer parents to appropriate sources of help, such as children’s Overeaters Anonymous meetings, psychologists, or whatever.
Robin
If your child is very tall and/ or seriously overweight AND YOU HAVN’T TAKEN THEM FOR APPROPRIATE MEDICAL TESTING AND/OR TREATMENT, then yes, I’d call it abuse.
Just as it would be abuse for you to neglect a child who is underweight and short for their age, or a child with any other medical condition.
If everything is A-OK, or going as well as could be hoped considering their condition, fine.
If you are denying your child medical treatment for a possible disease, then you’re abusing them.
I think that also the parents of some of these kids might have the psychological components to add and pass on to their kids too. I wouldn’t call it abuse, it’s a problem for sure, but are they really trying to harm their children? I’m sure that the mother mentioned above who tried to bring a purse full of candy bars to her kid during visitations had some serious issues with food and equating it to love.
I admit it: I watched a Jenny Jones show once about obese toddlers (I work nights so the few times I do decide to watch TV, my choices are very very limited!). The parents on the show weren’t abusive, in my opinion, they were just really psychologically messed up. They felt that they could not deny a child food, no matter how unhealthy the food in question was. It took nutritional and psychological counseling to help them. I really don’t think it’s abuse…it’s bad parenting and irresponsible for sure, but it’s both the parent that needs help to learn how to help their child in many of the severe cases.
When I think of abuse, I think of a jailable offense. Or at least punishable in some way. If we jailed the parents of every fat kid in America, there’d be a lot of kids living on the streets!
I think terming it “abuse” may be a little harsh. Neglect? Probably. I’ll tell you my own story: I was obese as a child, and have battled obesity all of my life (I think I’ve found the weapon to turn the trick in giving up sugar and refined carbs, and this seems to be working for me). I can take a pretty good guess at why my mom didn’t stop me from always being the fattest kid in the class: in order to change my eating habits, she would have had to have changed her own. She was obese, for her food was an escape. It was an attitude we were all raised with (and all five of us have always battled obesity), and we were all taught, by example, that food was our friend. Oh, my mom tried on and off to lose weight, and when she dieted, we all did. But she never stuck with anything for long.
It seems to me that, a great majority of the time, when kids are obese, so are their parents. The parents either don’t want to change the family’s eating habits, or they would like to but don’t know how. Education for these families should be the first line of defense. Psych counseling should be included, to find out where the parents’ feelings about food come from. I know I didn’t get the strength to deal with my weight in an effective way until I’d been in therapy for over a year and had dealt with other issues.
I don’t have any difinitive answers, I’m afraid. Just thought maybe I could offer some insight.
I think part of the problem with calling it abuse is that abuse has connotations about the parent’s intent. I suppose it’s possible that a parent is truly trying his or her best but is a pushover for the kid demanding to eat something. I don’t think that’s too hard to imagine, really.
I think it may be okay to place some blame with the parents as long as one doesn’t infer intent immediately.
Of course, these comments with the broad assumption that there isn’t a health problem involved.
Tibs.