Parents of seven told: Your children are too fat, so you will never see them again

reply to post by stumason


Do you have a link to this appeal being dropped?

I would like to have a look if you do not mind, since it does not state that the appeal has been dropped.

Ultimately this has nothing to do with the weight of these kids nor the diet fed to them by their parents. Go ahead and continue to pick that story apart and miss the real point.

This is about the government taking control over someone's lives, enforcing a set of subjective standards on its citizens and stripping them of their rights. It is about the do gooders in government seeking to erode privacy and freedom under the notion of "saving the children".

While fat kids might be the reason for the state's involvement in this instance, once the precedent is set, it will be quite easy for the state to identify additional items that make it "safer" for the kids to be in state care rather than in a private home. Too much TV, video games too mature for the child's age, frequent bike riding without a helmet, who knows.

Sure, I suppose there are case workers who think they are legitimately doing what is right for these kids, it is the state that seeks to control and seeks societal conformance that is the problem here and its something everyone should be concerned about.

Given the choice between fat kids being in homes with irresponsible parents and getting sick and an overarching state with the motivation and precedent to invade privacy and tear families apart, I'm picking letting the kids get fat, regardless of what happens to them.

reply to post by Flyer


Your logic is amazing to me. First off all, there is no "one size fits all" when it comes to weight. As an example, many people base how much you should weigh by how tall you are, but doing that does not account for how much muscle mass a person carries around.

I am 5' 7". I am not a tall guy, but I am a big 5' 7". As a child from the time I could ride a bicycle, I did. Everywhere. By the time I was 12 I got into racing BMX bikes and doing freestyle stunts. By the time I was in the 7th grade I began playing football. By 8th grade I started wrestling. By high school I stopped with bikes and stayed with wrestling and football. As an adult I have played semi pro football, stayed very active, sporadically dabbled in martial arts. If I were to drop myself down to about 5% body fat I would weigh about 170 lbs. Now keep in mind, a healthy average body fat percentage is 13-17%. So a 5% body fat percentage is outstanding.

Now check what my weight "should" be for a male at 5' 7" at the link below.

Online Ideal Weight Tool

For those too lazy to click the link.... it says the ideal weight for a person of my height is 121-153 lbs. That is an impossible weight for me to ever get to. The reason is because I carry too much muscle mass.

Moral of my story: There is no "one size fits all" when it comes to weight and fitness....and I am a grown man. IN the case of children, they are growing. Their bodies are constantly changing. A fat kid today can very easily grow into a very fit man. Sometimes it has nothing to do with how much they eat or even what they eat. It can simply have to do with the metabolism of the individual. Stop and think, how many people have you met that can eat anything at all they want and not gain a single pound? I can think of a few right now who complain because they can not gain weight. It works both ways.

So today the State is taking fat kids, tomorrow they may be taking away some skinny kid who eats like a horse but still can not gain a pound. It is a slippery slope and anyone who supports the States decision to use their own discretion to decide the fitness of the individual is a fool.

reply to post by AnonymousFem


Wish I had posted it earlier...

Bear with me, I shall find the story...

Originally posted by stumason
reply to post by EvanB

 

They can't do that unless you are actually running a business (deriving an income) and then, business doesn't pay council tax anyway. The only reference I can find about this on the web is a story from 2006 when there was a tax revaluation thing going on to determine the banding, where things like veggie patches and ponds would affect the house value, therefore the Tax banding.

Council tax is determined soley by banding and is a flat rate depending on the band you are in. Councils cannot charge you more simply because you have a vegetable patch.

If my council tried this, they would very soon be hearing from my Lawyer.

They tried it with a family member of mine. God knows how they got to know about his veggy patch, they must have sent their spies .

The family member recieved a letter from the council stating that he was running a veggy business from his house (was sooo not! Lol) and he was to pay extra council tax on that basis.

It did.go to court, in fact its ongoing.

I don't believe social services should take these kids from their home just because they are
overweight. However with that said I wonder just how obese these children are because
even in my own family we have kids that are so overweight they can't run and play like other kids.
It is unhealthy to say the least. The other thing I see in my family is that Mom's overfeed their kids
to get them to behave and it seems like a tradition to overfeed and overeat. Parents are overweight
and it trickles down to the kids. Are they trying to show love thru feeding, I think so from what I have
seen. The Dr told my granddaughter to put her 4 and 6 year old on a strict diet, she did for a day
or two and right back to feeding them all they wanted. She said they throw fits if you don't feed them
more - not sure what to make of that. As for social services I think they should guide the parents with
a program, get to the bottom of why the children are overfed and see that they eat good food but
less of it. Perhaps special play time instead of that extra portion would help? But to take them from
their homes is just wrong.

Also with the cost of food how can 7 children be so overweight?

Social services have done a great favor for these children.
If they weren't taken away, they would have ended up over eating themselves to death or disease.

Its better to be taken away, to lose weight, and live, then to eat like a pig, and die.

I know a woman who allows her kids to eat 4 pizza pockets a piece for breakfast, sometimes 2 hungry man dinners a piece for supper and this is daily. Her two kids eat more food collectively in a day than my family of 5
She writes letters to their school exempting them from phys ed. This in my opinion is child abuse. These kids are morbidly obese. Its disgusting. People have to he responsible for providing nutrition and proper exercise.

I

reply to post by RadeonGFXRHumanGTXisAlien


What makes it your business or the government's business how much these kids weigh? By what right, under what standard, under what justification should these kids be removed from their family?

Is it because they will potentially cost the state money in medical care? Fine. Make skateboards and bikes illegal. Outlaw tree climbing, contact sports would be banned. Dozens of other "harmful" activities.

Are the kids of people who smoke and drink to be taken out of the home next? What else do we want the state to consider a "harmful" environment?

Now what happens if these kids are taken away and don't lose weight? Do the parents have the right to sue the state?

Its nobody's business how fat these kids are.

reply to post by EvanB

My only thought is this is a joke for some kind of reality tv show.

Can't be real.

Otherwise, there're going to be a lot, a LOT of family breakups!!!!!!!

Ok...

First of all, this case is not just about the kids eating habits. The council themselves have said they would never remove kids from a family simply based on health or weight. Something else is or has happened in this household to cause the children to be removed. Unfortunately, the media for the most part have latched onto the weight issue and neglect to mention anything else.

It would appear, after reading through quite a few reports, that other incidents have come to light causing the Social Services to get involved. One such incident involved a small baby crawling around the house unsupervised and putting things in it's mouth. The parents were too big to move and intervene. Another, the mother was unable to get her child down from a window sill because she was to big to act. So there is a pattern of neglect and endangerment beyond just diet.

www.timesonline.co.uk...

All the kids are now in care, following a court hearing on the 30th Sept 2009 (an old story this one)

www.thisislondon.co.uk...

Now, I cannot find that article I read earlier saying the case had been dropped by the parents, but there does seem to be very little news on this after Oct 2009 when all 7 of the Children were removed from the parents.

I have found this:

www.telegraph.co.uk...

Indicating that they have their baby back after having it taken from them..

No mention of the other kids mind...

Why is skinny China having an Obesity/Diabetes epidemic?

Dioxins and Toxins. Industrial Revolution putting those poisons in their water, soil, air.

Which ends up getting in the human body...the human body puts the Toxin in fat to keep it from internal organs.

Hence why Americans became fat/obese and had their diabetes epidemic. Dioxins and Toxins.


If those British parents are smart they could get a lawyer and prove their kids were poisoned....by the Government.

For allowing food/air/water to have dioxins/toxins. Then they can counter sue the Government of England for damages...and their kids very lives.

Why do you think everyone sent manufacturing to China? Destroy their DNA as well. Pollute their land, water, air.....and bodies.

Why don't they start raiding vegan households so that their children receive proper diets?

Or why don't they raid christian households that force their religion on their kids, spank them, etc? After all, it leads to a lot of them rejecting evolution. Some reject science altogether.

If government starts thinking it has ALL the answers then ... what happened to evolution?

How can we evolve if government won't let us because it thinks we should be a certain way?

Diversity and hardship, good or bad, are the underlying mechanisms that drive evolution.

Some people can handle uncertainty and some can't.

IF we're going to start pretending that we know the future of evolution, then...

Well,... then it's no longer evolution. It's eugenics.

if this happened in the US, the thread title would be "amerika hates children"

lol


I'm too lazy to read the whole thread, was there a process before the ruling ? were they given a year to lose weight ?

if this was a one step process, it's highly objectionable

What's next? They take kids away for playing violent video games?

I think the Child Protective Services and similar organizations are a slippery slope. On one hand, some parents are truly horrible at being parents, but on the other hand, if these organizations get out of control they could destroy the family completely.

reply to post by dolphinfan


It isn't anyones business per say.
But the fact is, is that those kids would die, if they weren't taken away, they were headed on a road to obesity related death or disease.

If they don't lose weight, then yes imo, they have the right to sue the state, if the kids do lose weight, then, a job well done, being obese is awful, SS really came through for once.

reply to post by metaldemon2000


Your example is the perfect argument that just because you can have kids, does not mean you should have kids. To start with, the things you described is not even food. It's all chemicals. We all know the meat in a Hungry Man dinner is not even real meat.. it is processed meat like substance. What you are describing, there is a case to be made about neglect. In my opinion those parents are just too stupid to have kids to begin with.

Yet on the other hand, even is such a case as you describe I would not be comfortable to trust the Government to decide who is and who is not healthy. The list of things the Federal Government involved itself in and screwed up is a very long list. I certainly would not trust the doctors in my country, especially if the bill is being paid by the State. Even though the parent in the situation you describe is clearly an idiot, those kids at any time can learn about nutrition and make a change if they so desire to.

reply to post by dolphinfan

What makes it your business or the government's business how much these kids weigh? By what right, under what standard, under what justification should these kids be removed from their family?

Parents are required by law to take care of their children properly, and that includes diet and weight. Otherwise it is child abuse. And that definately IS governments business.

I do think that the authorities may be overreacting in this case, tough I dont know the details. And there may be some slipery slope arguments constructed from it. But there surely is a right, standard and justification for government involvement in such cases, there can be no question about that.

Soon they won't even allow parents to mention their religion to their children.

They'll have to keep it private or risk being put in jail.

When I grew up, my parents forced me to go to church. I didn't have a choice. They forced christ on my soul. They drilled it into me. It was a psychological war that they inevitably won. I couldn't watch 'bad' movies or read 'bad' books. Etc. My dad spanked me so hard sometimes it was sore. My dad once said that science won't get you to heaven. He even compared scientists to sinners. I guess that if I told a healthcare worker back then about these things that....

In the future, they would be put in jail for being bad parents. Vegans will be put in jail for malnourishing their children. Parents who let their kids play video games too much will be put in jail. Alcoholic parents will have their children taken away. Etc. The list will go on forever because government is so arrogant to think that it understands the future of our evolution.

There's no such thing as evolution anymore. From here on out, it's eugenics.

My parents didn't make perfect choices. But we're worse than them if we play god.

Originally posted by Terrorist
reply to post by EvanB

 

They should face some sort of legal penalty, because that's definitely child abuse, but I agree that it's extreme for them to be faced with the possibility of never again seeing their children.

Never seeing them again is clearly too extreme. However if they were malnourished to the point of starvation they would be facing the same outcome. We all know when you're a fat kid you only get to be two things.

Funny and a goalkeeper.