AMA Journal - Parents of super obese kids should lose custody. (Nanny State running amok !! )

When I searched for similar threads, there were none posted, but it took some time to compose this, so if someone beat me to it, I ask forgiveness for being a slow typist !

SOURCE

Should parents of extremely obese children lose custody for not controlling their kids' weight? A provocative commentary in one of the nation's most distinguished medical journals argues yes, and its authors are joining a quiet chorus of advocates who say the government should be allowed to intervene in extreme cases.

Dr. David Ludwig, an obesity specialist at Children's Hospital Boston and Lindsey Murtagh, attorney and researcher at Harvard's School of Public Health co-authored the op/ed piece. Here's more of what the pair had to say.

State intervention "ideally will support not just the child but the whole family, with the goal of reuniting child and family as soon as possible.... Despite the discomfort posed by state intervention, it may sometimes be necessary to protect a child.

On the surface the argument appears well-intentioned. In the US a few instances have already occurred, yet of the three cases they cite to demonstrate the success of the intervention, two of the minors have yet to return to their families.

After a year, she lost 130 pounds. Though she is still obese, her diabetes and apnea disappeared; she remains in foster care,

single mother who lost custody of her 555-pound 14-year-old son two years ago...Her sister has custody of the boy, now 16. "Even though good has come out of this as far as him losing weight, he told me just last week, 'Mommy, I want to be back with you so bad.'

The ongoing circumstances of those cited cases are in direct opposition to what the learned doctor and lawyer are drumming up support for. As anyone with less brains and education than Dr. Ludwig and barrister Murtagh knows, once DSS or any other agency becomes involved, it is difficult, if not practically impossible, to get them uninvolved. (I speak from experience. My husband and I endured the humiliation of an unfounded allegation to DSS from an anonymous source. After being threatened with the removal of my children, subjected to having my relatives, friends, neighbors, family physicians and employers interviewed regarding our lifestyle habits, forced to take urine tests that we were billed for, and enduring emotional and mental stress that I would not care to curse my direst enemy with, we were found to be drug-free, non-abusive, mentally stable, church-going, insured, registered voters and fully exonerated, yet despite the positive DSS ruling, we continue to be on a list of "suspects" and will remain so for five years, even though by then our youngest child will be 20. We continue to deal with the fallout from the damage done to our reputations.)

The issue of obesity discussed in the article is not applicable to any member of my family, yet it struck a nerve as one of the persons interviewed in the piece lives in the next county over from me, therefore her and her child's plight was followed closely in the local media outlets. Sentiment here abouts has been on the whole supportive of her, yet little good it did when faced with the "shall-not-be-denied" authoritarian mentality of the nanny state.

While I feel that morbid obesity is a legitimate health concern for minors (and adults), I do not support the state's intervention in these cases as I believe it to be a usurpation of the rights of the individual and the family. Further I think it as equally detrimental to the minor's emotional and developmental well-being as the obesity suffered. By placing the child in foster care, he or she then becomes a state responsibility at the expense of the tax payer. In these times of economic chaos when budgetary shortfalls at every level of civic, state and federal administration result in drastically slashed funding for programs, resources and the personnel to administer them, burdening the system with an added responsibility is the last thing that should be entertained.

Who shall make the ultimate determination whether the obesity is a result of neglectful parenting? Genectics? Economics? Too many Big Macs? Other physical or psychological causes? A rebellious teen who exercises the free will to eat junk food rather than a balanced diet? These are not issues that Uncle Sam or Sister State need to preside over. I'm not saying there is no need for competent and supportive medical oversight in extreme cases, but physically removing an obese child from an otherwise non-endangering environment is just as extreme.

I further believe that this form of state invention sets a dangerous precedent which has the potential to pave the way for additonal erosion of personal rights in favor of the all-seeing eye of the nanny state. Today, it's obesity; tomorrow it's because your children are too tan or too pale. You are a neglectful parent for allowing them to become overexposed to too much sunlight, increasing their likelihood of developing melanomas later in life. You are a neglectful parent because you do not expose your child enough to sunlight, therefore depriving them of vitamin D which may lead to lowered immunity to the common cold or osteoporosis in later life. Once the door has been opened, it's hard to close. Will it come to losing custody of your child or a prison term for you if allowed him or her to stay up past bedtime to watch the end of a show or encouraged them to ignore bedtime curfews on vacation, thereby depriving those little lives you are responsible for, of their needed eight hours of sleep?

I am so very weary of the increasing tightness of the choker leash the "it's-for-your-own-good" mentalities in positions of authority are leading society's citizens on. The vast majority of persons I know are fully capable of making well-informed, non-endangering decisions about their and their families' welfare, which includes (surprise !) diet. If anything should generate concern in these learned thinkers who know best for us, then perhaps they should begin with removing the artifical and chemical additives from the GMO food supply they stock the grocery shelves with. Can you imagine the pandemonium should an epidemic of health break out?

The article quotes a statistic which bears keeping in mind.

Roughly 2 million U.S. children are extremely obese.

Two million kids have the potential to be forcefully removed from parental custody and placed in an environment where their minds, bodies and values are re-educated, re-shaped, and re-molded to conform to a subjective standard that is meant to be for their benefit. I feel that type of domestic agenda (and the mentality drivng it) is far more invasive and fearsome than any threat we face from terrorists, aliens, Elenin or zombie hoards.

2,000,000 children....is yours next on the list?

something needs to be done... unless you plan on watching them all die.

You are your brothers keeper, because pretty soon we'll all have our fingers on the button.

Just out of curiosity, what would your opinion be of parents that starve their children?
Would it then be ok to remove the child from their parents for the childs benefit?

In my opinion, it's amounts to the same.

Morbidly obese children ARE abused in one form or another.

Children do not naturally have a propensity toward eating as much as an adult. It's their adult guardians that teach them that eating more than they need is acceptable.

They do this in a few ways:

They starve them of affection so that they use food as a type of 'hug'.

They overfeed them so that they stunt their child's growth; delaying their child's flight from the nest;

They are emotionally abusive, and exhibit addictive behaviors... instilling the same behaviors in their children.

etc....

Is the answer to take morbidly-obese children from their parents?

Sometimes yes, Sometimes no.

reply to post by ladyjem


As I understand it - obesity is based on BMI or Body Mass Index. That means it does not matter whether you have fat or muscle. The government being a bunch of mind-numbed morons would then be grabbing a chiseled high-school kid preparing for college football or weight lifting and take custody of them. You could also just be tall and skinny and considered obese. They changed how we defined obese years ago so that they could start pushing the 'food safety' laws by doing away with the food that made us normal and replacing with food to make us fat.

reply to post by BrianDamage


I feel that willful neglect or abuse (starvation) should be investigated thoroughly and if the situation warrants, the necessary medical and/or legal steps be taken to protect the child, however starvation is not a product of a genectic predisposition that some of those 2 million kids inherited. I am not denying that an overall societal decline in parenting skills does not play an important role in the creation of the child obesity epidemic, nor do I deny that other factors contribute to the situation as well.

Parents, coming home exhausted after working two jobs to make ends meet, haven't the energy to actively engage their offspring in a romp in yard. It's easier to get the night's meal at the drive-thru, rather than taking the time to prepare a proper dinner. Neither do many have the inclination to compel their child to exercise when the child is adverse to it, merely because they wish to avoid the whining, the tantrums, the confrontations when they tell the kid to get outside and do something other than being a couch potatoe.

We can blame modern technology if we choose. Kids prefer video games, texting, Facebook, Twitter and the internet over a game of pick-up baseball, hiking, biking or just a good old fashioned game of tag with siblings or friends.

Healthier food often costs more.

Source

We can accuse the economy. A .59 cent taco or a. 99 cent burger is often far more afforable than the $4.99 pound of ground beef to fix a pan of Hamburger Helper. We can hold the food manufacturers responsible for the amount of sugars, fats, and additives in their products.There are countless mitigating factors governing this crisis, and no one is exempt from their share of responsibility.

My point on the issue is that I do not support the method of intervention the op/ed authors advocate. I've not researched the data, but I don't recall hearing of any children/teens suffering from anorexia or bulimia being removed from parental custody because of their extreme affliction. Medically necessary intervention, yes, but cases of removing a child from its mother because the child forces herself to vomit a dozen times a day, no, I'm not aware of (though I'm sure some well-intentioned authoritarians have accomplished it). The parent is not inducing the regurgitation, nor can an individual be constantly monitored 24/7, unless in a prison or supervised medical facility. Anorexia/bulimia are pyschological disorders and are treated appropriately. As such, should not the same consideration be given to the morbidly obese whose eating habits result from similiar psychosymatic causes?

I never said that I do not believe these kids do not deserve proper care. I do think an aggressive program of intervention through appropriate education and counseling for both parents and offspring, coupled with, as I stated earlier, competent and compassionate medical supervision, would serve far better than severing parental custody.

In the cases cited, in state enforced interventions designed to improve health, those children are still in foster care after YEARS. How long does it take to teach someone to prepare and eat nutrious, balanced meals? Years? Ridiculous ! Any semi-literate individual can open a cookbook. Peer reviewed studies have linked obesity and depression. Can we imagine the emotional stress and depression a child of normal weight would undergo if removed from home and family without adequate cause? Can we imagine the emotional stress and depression an obese child suffers in the same situation? I presume the latte's level of anxiety should be even more intense, given the fact that they can not help but to be aware of their physical condition. The pain of the stigma attached thereon, the humiliation and low self esteem engendered by insensitve name-calling members of "normal" society, the difficulty of coping with associative health challenges are quite enough for an adult to face, but to be taken from home and family and being placed in the care of strangers because "You're fat," strikes me as the ultimate abrogation of individual by state.

Adverse childhood experiences promote the development of both depression and obesity, and, presumably, their co-occurrence.

Source

Does this not seem counter productive? In the least? What is the ultimate goal? To improve their health now at the cost of mental trauma which will be felt for the remainder of their lives?

"Child, the State desires you to eat properly so that you may feel good about yourself and be a productive, healthy member of non-fat society,...but to do so, we are going to take you away from your parents until such time we deem you cured. There, there, don't cry, here's a raisin."

To me, this would look like another overstep of the governments power. I would put this into the same category as the spanking v. non-spanking debate. While you can't excuse the parents for their poor eating habits of their children, you also can't punish them for it. You'll also be punishing the child if they were to go down this route like the post above mine was stating.

I was slightly overweight growing up and I grew into myself and I know how the subject of that persons weight really goes through their mind many times a day. To have the knowledge that your parents lost custody of you because you were too fat would destroy those with an already weak self-confidence value.

I hope this never comes to action. There are other, better, alternatives to fix the obesity problem without the government sticking their nose into peoples families. They are not wanted or needed.

So he's an obesity specialist at a children's hospital vouching that over weight/obese children should be taken away from their parents.

To me it sounds like this guy is pleaing for more patients in his care unit, and what better way to do this than to write up a study suggesting that parents are unfit to take care of their children and let the government take care of them.

Once the govn. is involved, they'll set obscene standards as to what qualifies as an over weight child and conduct weight checks a schools to find children that are over the set qualifying weight.

Don't take away the kids, teach the parents about healthy living. Common Sense.

It's partly the parent's fault....but it's mostly the fault of public health authorities...

The following contribute heavily to childhood obesity:

- Idiots who think childhood obesity is cause by a "lack of playtime"

There's a reason kids and teenagers eat and sleep alot...IT'S CAUSE THEY'RE GROWING. If they didn't eat as much and/or sleep as much, tissue growth would come endogenously and at a great cost. Studies have repeatedly show that obese children did not become sedentary until they became obese. So, it's clear that obesity is causing the lack of play, not the other way around. Exercising works no better at fixing childhood obesity than it does adult obesity. It simply doesn't work. You can't try and control the calories in vs calories out (exercise and dieting) of a child...just feed it the right foods.

- U.S. Dietary Guidelines

Children, and parents of children, are told to eat low fat breakfasts with whole grains. They're told to avoid butter, eggs (they're coming around on eggs) and bacon. Kids are drinking low-fat chocolate milk that is loaded with HFCS???? They're drinking orange juice that is loaded with HFCS??? They're eating "whole-grain" cereal that's loaded with sugar...and of course they douce it with low-fat milk???? They're eating whole-grain wheat toast with margerine, instead of butter, that's laced with industrial seed oils and transfats???? These are all considered healthy breakfast habits!!!!

- Nutritionists, doctors and dietitians giving horrible nutrition advice.

Many people don't realize that what a mother eats when she is growing a person inside of her directly affects the metabolic system of that growing person. Prenatal over-exposure to certain dietary elements (fructose, transfats, grains and industrial seed oils) will negatively affect the fetus in such a way that the child will be born with a predisposition to developing chronic disease (such as obesity and diabetes). When a child starts to become insulin resistant in the womb, there is not doubt it will become obese as a child once he/she begins eating somewhat unhealthily.

I'm sorry, but I agree. Children that are obese, whether the case be extreme or not, should be taken away from their parents. Unless they have an underlying health problem such as an under active thyroid.

I believe it is full on child abuse.

Originally posted by ararisq
reply to post by ladyjem

 

As I understand it - obesity is based on BMI or Body Mass Index. That means it does not matter whether you have fat or muscle. The government being a bunch of mind-numbed morons would then be grabbing a chiseled high-school kid preparing for college football or weight lifting and take custody of them. You could also just be tall and skinny and considered obese. They changed how we defined obese years ago so that they could start pushing the 'food safety' laws by doing away with the food that made us normal and replacing with food to make us fat.

Do you know how much muscle a kid would have to have to look like he is morbibly obese? Besides there are back up tests used for situations such as the one you pose.

A person who is weighed and is over the maximum limit gets to be taped and or get the pinch test done. I am 5ft 6in and weigh 200 pounds. Now the army thinks my BMI should be around 160. Since I fail the scale I have to be taped. They mesure the neck and stomach.

I pass everytime even though I am 40 pounds over my accepted BMI simply because I am not a disgusting fat body.

A parent who buys their fat disgusting children twinkies and ho hos should not be allowed to keep them and should be thrown in jail.

This issue is a smoke screen for something entirely different. It is not about whether fat kids should be removed from their parents nor is it about whether allowing obesity in children is "abusive" parenting. This issue is about whether Americans are soverign citizens in charge of their own destiny or whether we are ALL property of the State.

Throw up an issue, any issue and people will have differing opinions on that issue. We all know what opinions are like and how everyone has one.

No, this slippery slope is a "weather balloon" of sorts to determine if the American people are willing to let the State determine which of its citizens are allowed to keep and raise children and which are not. If we allow this thinking/behavior to continue then perhaps next year (or next week) we'll have to concede that parents who let their children become Christians or conservatives or Republicans, etc. will also have to be removed from the home.

Once we concede that the State has the right to make ANY determination of what constitutes acceptability in removing children from their parents (as we have already done to a certain extent) then we have set a precedent by conceding the larger issue: individual sovereignty.

I guarantee that this issue is NOT about obesity. Wake up people!

reply to post by whitewave


People need to back off the parents for a second and ask yourself...just how much do YOU really know about nutrition. Even the experts (not the "so-called" experts, the best in the field) are having to backtrack as new data are published daily. So get off your high-horse and realize for a second how this really works.

I've brought this up multiple times before. You can't blame the parents when the advice we're being told by public health authorities is CONTRIBUTING to the problem.

When you've got greedy journalists and scientists and industry/media bias, and when politics infiltrate nutrition science, you get flippy-floppy articles that one year say eggs are bad, the next say just the yolk, and then the next year say the whole egg is good. It creates uncertainty within the general public. When I coach people on training and nutrition, one of the most common responses I get is.."One day they tell you to eat this, and the next they tell you not to. It's frustrating. So I just eat ________."

Any shallow minded individual (some in this thread) that seriously thinks parents would willingly feed their child/children horse sh!t out of an act of neglect or abuse to the degree and frequency with which we see it today should see a psychologist for symptoms of sociopathy and subsequently be banned from any social interaction...ever, as it's clear such an individual has no sense of what it is to be human.

Edit to Add: The level of nutrition education in this country is simply sad. The number of adults that I talk to that think only fat is fattening, or that sugar isn't detrimental because it doesn't have fat in it is overwhelming...or how about the number of people, and experts, that still think sodium consumption is causing hypertension and heart disease...when the evidence has existed and is still pouring from the journals suggesting dietary sodium is an insignificant factor.

reply to post by ladyjem


I wonder if people realize that the AMA is not a branch of the government.. And is a private association..
And then that this opinion would have nothing to do with a nanny state since it isn't from the gov.

Originally posted by BrianDamage
Just out of curiosity, what would your opinion be of parents that starve their children?
Would it then be ok to remove the child from their parents for the childs benefit?

In my opinion, it's amounts to the same.

provocative point. there is a thread going on right now proving your point


well played sir

What do you expect from a country where anything bad that happens is always someone else's fault.
Next thing the parents will sue the people who sell the crap food they eat.Oh wait its already happened
news.bbc.co.uk...
www.foxnews.com...
ETA i searched this topic not really expecting to find anything,The list is long.

reply to post by ladyjem


Lady Jem, thank you so much for posting this.

I was absolutely livid when I heard it on the radio.

WHY???

Because the Medical/Government/Rockefeller Foundations CAUSED the problem in the first place!

Remember the USDA's food pyramid that makes you LOOK like a pyramid???

It has been known for over 200 yrs that a diet high in carbohydrates is very very bad for you. see Metabolism Conference

Who controls the medical/pharmaceutical/Ag industry folks???

Who has bluntly stated they want complete control of us???? QUOTES

...In the early half of the 20th century, petrochemical giants organized a coup on the medical research facilities, hospitals and universities. The Rockefeller family sponsored research and donated sums to universities and medical schools which had drug based research. They further extended this policy to foreign universities and medical schools where research was drug based through their "International Education Board". Establishments and research which were were not drug based were refused funding and soon dissolved in favor of the lucrative pharmaceutical industry.

In 1939 a "Drug Trust" alliance was formed by the Rockefeller empire and the German chemical company IG Farben (Bayer). After World War Two, IG Farben was dismantled but later emerged as separate corporations within the alliance. Well known companies included General Mills, Kellogg, Nestle, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Procter and Gamble, Roche and Hoechst (Sanofi-Aventis). The Rockefeller empire, in tandem with Chase Manhattan Bank (now JP Morgan Chase), owns over half of the pharmaceutical interests in the United States. It is the largest drug manufacturing combine in the world. Since WWII, the pharmaceutical industry has steadily netted increasing profits to become the world's second largest manufacturing industry; [3], [4] after the arms industry....

IG Farben & Auschwitz

Auschwitz was the largest mass extermination factory in human history. However, few people are aware that Auschwitz was a 100% subsidiary of IG Farben....

After WWII, IG Farben attempted to shake its abominable image through corporate restructuring and renaming. So great has been their success that the public has no idea that it many of the men responsible for such atrocities, were able to carry on their work even after the collapse of the Nazi regime. Namely, a medical paradigm that relies almost exclusively highly toxic drugs. Such men were in control of the large chemical and pharmaceutical companies, both well before and after Hitler. The Nuremberg Tribunal convicted 24 IG Farben board members and executives on the basis of mass murder, slavery and other crimes. Incredibly, most of them had been released by 1951 and continued to consult with German corporations. The Nuremberg Tribunal dissolved IG Farben into Bayer, Hoechst and BASF, each company 20 times as large as IG Farben in 1944. For almost three decades after WWII, BASF, Bayer and Hoechst (Aventis) filled their highest position, chairman of the board, with former members of the Nazi regime. Bayer has been sued by survivors of medical experiments...

History of agribusiness interests

American Farm Bureau

The myth that American Farm Bureau (AFBF) represents the interests of farmers is longstanding, though long debunked. In his 1971 book, Dollar Harvest: The Story of the Farm Bureau, Samuel Berger argued that the AFBF was:

"quietly and systematically amassing one of the largest business networks in America, while turning its back on the deepening crisis of the farmers whom it supposedly represents."

The AFBF is controlled from the top and its leadership is self-perpetuating, which is how it was designed. It was founded in the early 1900s by the New York Chamber of Commerce and funded by the Rockefellers and the Vanderbilts via the Chicago Board of Trade. [7], The Farm Bureau was designed to counter the nonpartisan, populist farm movement that was emerging at the time. [8] See also American Farm Bureau.

The "Green Revolution"

A new look at international intervention came during the Indian famine of ‘65 and ‘66; the most well advertised famine to date and a major boost for RF's population control campaign. Since the Chinese Revolution, India had been the bastion of the “free (enterprise) world.” However, western businessmen had long worried over its "neutralism”, “socialism” and economic restrictions on foreigners. That ended in 1958, when India experienced a foreign exchange crisis. The World Bank intervened with the “Aid India Club” and one billion dollars a year in aid. International investors like RF and the Ford Foundation, immediately seized the opportunity. The Ford Foundation stepped in with a “food crisis” team, pushing agricultural spending at the expense of housing and social services. Undersecretary of Commerce Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr., led a delegation of executives to New Delhi for the purpose of "persuading the government to adopt policies more attractive to potential investors". Rockefeller’s Jersey Standard wanted price and distribution restrictions lifted on their Bombay fertilizer plant. Petroleum producers lobbied to set up fertilizer plants to utilize naphtha, an otherwise useless petroleum by-product. The Ford and Rockefeller foundations also wanted to expand the use of their new high yield seeds, deliberately bred for large fertilizer and pesticide inputs.[9]

Population: Rockefeller family plan

In of June 1952, John D. Rockefeller III, father of four and chairman of the Rockefeller Foundation, hosted a select conference on population in Colonial Williamsburg, restored to its pre-Revolutionary beauty by the RF. After two and a half days, 30 eminent conservationists, public health experts, Planned Parenthood leaders, agriculturalists, demographers and social scientists formed a group which described itself as “a coordinating and catalytic agent in the broad field of population". The group was christened "The Population Council" by John D III, who also appointed himself its first president..... www.sourcewatch.org...

But as soon as someone pushes the hot button -

"Its for the CHILDREN"

The sheeple turn off what ever minds they have and immediately say Yessir.

Originally posted by BrianDamage
Just out of curiosity, what would your opinion be of parents that starve their children?
Would it then be ok to remove the child from their parents for the childs benefit?

In my opinion, it's amounts to the same.

Good thing it's just your opinion. Children aren't being forced to overeat. And when you consider that most obese children are from less affluent families, it's pretty damn clear that overeating simply for food reward wouldn't be tolerated.

While I don't think this should ever happen, I think it should be on the brink at all times. The discussion should always be there, the thought always fresh in the mind of the parents.

Perhaps it'll help parents surround their kids with better food and encourage the parents to encourage the kids to exercise.

reply to post by Tharsis


Kids don't need to exercise. They play. And they don't get fat from a lack of playing.