Social workers remove new-born baby from obese mother

reply to post by Jessicamsa


Good lord, how awful. What a terrible thing to happen to you and you're child.
My heart goes out to you.
Child abduction would be the absolute most horrifying and heart breaking experience for anyone to ever have to live through.
I'm sure even when the child was returned the nightmare lived on and it would've taken a long time and support to move forward.
I hope that things have gotten better for you and your child since this terrorfying experience.

reply to post by Flighty


If they didn't take away Kate Moss's child when she was on the front page doing blow, and if they allow smoking, drinking, snorting, fighting Liam Gallagher to have children in his home then I don't understand how they can justify removing the children from this poor family.

reply to post by IndigoP

The thing is, they can't run their own lives. They have been in the system and receiving money from the state.

I read the OP's article and the last paragraph leads me to believe that there is more to the story than the mother being obese. Here is the quote.

“We have made it clear on numerous occasions that children would not be removed from a family environment just because of a weight issue.”

The woman's weight is irrelevant, even though mentioned in the story. 23 stone is a bit more than 300 pounds (1 stone = 14 pounds). That's obese, but many people weigh that and more, and don't have their kids taken.

The problem is that some of her kids are also obese. The social workers are worried that the kids are malnourished. Malnourished means *badly* nourished, not necessarily under-nourished. Overfeeding kids, or giving them the wrong types of food, is harmful to them.

Turn it around. If some parent had a child that was seriously underweight (and if the parent had enough money to pay for food), wouldn't it be reasonable to take the kid away? The parent isn't feeding the kid properly. Either it's not enough food, or it's not the right kind, and the kid is at risk of becoming ill from being undernourished.

Well, if a kid is being overnourished, the same reasoning applies. Too much food can lead to severe illness, just as can starvation. If a parent is not feeding a child properly, then it may be necessary to take the kid away. If a parent has *already* demonstrated that she can't feed her chi8ld properly (by causi9ng the child to be badly nourished), then it is reasonable to take away any new kids.

Please delete. Unintentional double-post. Thank you.

[edit on 10/30/2009 by chiron613]

They don't even look that fat. I probably see more people who look like that in a day than "healthy" people. Then again, I live in fat America in a town full of particularly disgusting people...

I read a report that stated SIDS deaths are more likely in homes of the obease. I'll see if I can find it