Should overweight kids be removed from their homes? - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

ASU2003 · 07-19-2011, 07:59 PM

Should Parents Lose Custody of Their Extremely Obese Kids? – TIME Healthland

Overweight teens less likely to get doctor weight talk – The Chart - CNN.com Blogs

Do Parents Discriminate Against Their Own Chubby Children? – TIME Healthland

This might be a controversial one...

The main question is, what is in the best interest of the child?

I think that doctors should be able to recommend a normal weight for their young patients. If they go over that target by a lot, then the first step would be for the parents to change their families eating habits, get more exercise, and change their lifestyles. Failing to do that, there should be some place like a summer camp setup for these kids to go to get more exercise, restrict their diet to healthy foods that they cook, and are able to play physically challenging activities with peers similar to them for 3-6 months. At the same time, the parents should be taught how damaging their inaction can be.

So, is sending the child to a weight loss camp for a few months to work hard, have fun, and change their weight issue a problem? Will keeping the kids with their parents and in school, with no change, benefit them in the long run? Is there any way to get a young boy not to eat fast food, except for it to be a long way away? Is the problem that there are now way too many kids that need this for it to work? Or are there some kids that are so obese that it is equal to child abuse and they should be removed from the home?

Willravel · 07-19-2011, 08:15 PM

If the government is going to get involved in the obesity epidemic (finally), they should take it seriously. Taking kids from their parents for being fat is only going to make people mistrust the government and it's not going to fix the problem.

We need a radical restructuring of the subsidy program. Subsidies should not be blanket given to corn because it's in a battleground/primary state. That is the central reason as to why we're fat. By subsidizing unhealthy foods, we're making obesity inevitable. If we're to subsidize the production of food, we should do so evenly across all grown foods from vegetables to fruit to nuts and seeds and whole grains.

But getting back to the specific topic at hand, kids should jot be taken from their parents due only to obesity.

KirStang · 07-19-2011, 08:19 PM

Wow. I am glad I cancelled my Time subscription.

Advocating the removal of children due to overnutrition. The right to raise your own children is a fundamental right. Meaning the state must show a compelling interest and narrowly tailored means to fix that.

The idea that fat kids justifies removal in to fostercare....well...it's fucking divorced from reality. I surmise that involuntary removal from a parental home, that, by all accounts isn't abusive will render more long term harm to the child than permitting them to stay fat.

Anyway. The short and long is: Why the fuck are we expecting government to fix a non-emergency parenting problem?

AND YES:

Willravel, I think you hit the nail on the head. There's a dearth of delicious, healthy, and easily accessible food in America. In Taiwan, I could go out for a bowl of beef noodle soup at 12:45am (veggies, carbs, not much fat/frying). Here, the only thing open at 12:45am is McDonalds.

ASU2003 · 07-19-2011, 08:24 PM

The government is not involved with my example. The doctors would have the power to actually require treatment for obesity sooner rather than after the damage has been done later in life.

Willravel · 07-19-2011, 08:33 PM

I was responding to the concept of losing custody, which involves the judicial system.

Plan9 · 07-19-2011, 08:49 PM

Ah, yes... TIME magazine. Yet another example of You Can't Fix Stupid in action.

...

WillRavel has a point:

The government would be involved in the save-the-fat-kid enforcement area so this is totally a government issue given the OP.

Baraka_Guru · 07-19-2011, 08:51 PM

Well, the obesity problem has been pretty bad for a while and it's only getting worse: Latest Figures On Obesity Paint An Uglier Picture : Shots - Health Blog : NPR

Colorado is the best off with an obesity rate of "only" ~20%. That's right, it's considered better off to have a population where 1 out of 5 people have a BMI of over 30 (i.e., if you're 5'8" tall, you weigh over 200 lbs.).

Childhood obesity is a problem: it's an indicator of obesity in adulthood and all the health problems associated with it.

Therefore, childhood obesity is a serious health risk. Consider it along the same lines as asthma or IBS or Crohn's. Do we let these things go untreated? Probably not nearly as much, but I assume it's because these are "real" diseases, while obesity is considered a "lifestyle choice" or a result of laziness or some such. Yeah, but it's too bad kids aren't exactly the best at making decisions of right and wrong. It's why they can't vote, drive, buy alcohol and cigarettes, or have consensual sex with adults.

What to do? I think if doctors identify that child is obese that they have access to both standard and interventional treatments depending on health risk. Of coruse, it's easy for me to say this: I live in a nation with universal health care. Maybe that's part of the problem in the U.S.: the lack of one.

You may have noticed that I haven't talked about overweight people. I mentioned only obese. This means the problem is worse that I've already stated if you include overweight as well. Overweight isn't as bad as obese, but there are still health risks, and being overweight can lead to being obese.

So what are we looking at? Something like 17% of kids aged 2 to 19 are overweight or obese. Again, we're close to the 1 out of 5 number.

More could be done. The CDC lists risk factors that could be focused on more:

Sugar drinks and less healthy foods on school campuses.
Advertising of less healthy foods.
Variation in licensure regulations among child care centers.
Lack of daily, quality physical activity in all schools.
No safe and appealing place, in many communities, to play or be active.
Limited access to healthy affordable foods.
Greater availability of high-energy-dense foods and sugar drinks.
Increasing portion sizes.
Lack of breastfeeding support.
Television and media.

Obesity and Overweight for Professionals: Childhood: Problem | DNPAO | CDC

How about instead of taking kids out of homes, we deal with the problem at all the sources: it's not just about the parents. We live in a time where parents cannot hope to be the sole influence over a child's activities and food habits/choices.

A part of me wishes there could be more legislation limiting how certain products are marketed to children or how we organize and manage places where kids are cared for and educated, but I'm not sure this is how to have the most impact. Maybe it's a start.

There is no single solution. It's about addressing the issue on multiple fronts.

I think the biggest problem is ignorance and a lack of will to actively work towards an unified awareness of what's going on.

high_jinx · 07-19-2011, 10:26 PM

i agree with autonomy on raising your child. but that said, there should be a bar set for anything the government provides every kid. i strongly believe that bar should be a higher priority than just about anything else. it'd be great if parents stepped up to raise healthy kids, but if the food comes from our public schools it should be optimally healthy. at the moment however, we have to unfortunately add this to the list of trends in which we are neglecting our own country's core and spreading ourselves so thin.

AbelG · 07-20-2011, 12:59 AM

why take away the kids from their parents? don't you think that foods from restaurants and food chains plus the junk foods should be blamed?

chinese crested · 07-20-2011, 01:51 AM

Wouldnt the next step be to take all overweight disabled people away from their carers and bung them in institutions 'for their own good'?

genuinegirly · 07-20-2011, 04:51 AM

ASU, I've been reading a number of articles on this matter recently, and it has been driving me bonkers.

I was on the underweight side of the spectrum as a child. It was never a concern. My sister's youngest child is petite - at 2 she is still wearing infant-sized clothing. But her body is in proportion, and even a bit chubby. Her underweight nature is a combination of genetics, being born premature, and food allergies. When this child was first born, she participated in the WIC program. During the associated medical checkups her daughter was always off-the-charts tiny. At one point, a nurse told her that if her daughter comes into an appointment underweight again they would get child protective services involved. At that point, they bowed out of the WIC program (taking food out of the mouth of the underweight child) and found another doctor who was interested in working with the family to sort out food allergies and help find a diet that would work.

The fact is - a child can be removed from a home for supposed undernourishment. So along that line of logic, it makes sense in some people's minds to remove children from their homes if they are over-nourished.

Removing a child from loving parents is never a good idea. Child abuse situations centered around food are rare, but do exist. I'm talking about situations where parents beat their kids unless they over-eat... But most of the time childhood obesity results from over-worked well-intentioned parents who are uninformed about the health risks or social implications of their child being overweight/obese. They don't have the inclination to moderate their child's food intake, or they themselves are overweight and don't know how to live in moderation.

Physical education should be a requirement in every level of school, from preschool to graduate school. Healthy eating should be standard. Hot lunches at school are a waste - a cheese sandwich made of a half-slice of bread, an apple, and maybe some chips are all that a child requires to meet their nutritional requirements. That's what I had in my lunch through elementary school. When I got to high school I upgraded to two slices of bread and switched from juice to water. I even ran track on that kind of a lunch... What the heck are schools doing by offering greasy pizza, cookies, ice cream, etc. I realize that in many low-income urban areas, kids only eat what the school provides - but many of these schools also offer a huge breakfast with things like eggs, sausage, fried tater tots, french toast, and maybe canned fruit. Oh, and free dinner is now not unheard-of in a school setting, with even more high-calorie options than hot lunch. Since standardized tests don't gauge children on their physicality anymore (they had standard PE tests when I was a kid, what happened?) and recess times have been shortened, what we have is a situation where we're forcing our children to take on a sedentary lifestyle. They come home and don't feel safe running around their neighborhoods playing ball or riding their bikes/skateboards/scooters unsupervised, so instead they stay inside playing video games.

At this point I'm just ranting... There are some major problems. Parents need to take responsibility for their children's health. If they are unwilling to do so, they should be given incentives. Children should never be removed from loving homes. Parents should never feel a threat that the government could steal their children.

Fat camps are worthless. Making kids interact with other obese kids, showing them that there are more out there like them? Preparing food for them? NO. That's the last thing they need. They'll realize they're not the fattest person around. Most of those kids will be coming from areas where overweight is the norm. They haven't ever seen a healthy child, or if they have, they've thought they were scrawny wimps.

Now, plunk one obese child in the midst of a group of incredibly well-fit, physically adept children and tell them that if they shed some pounds they'll be capable of the same stuff. Make it a cooking camp - feed them reasonable portions, teach them to COOK for themselves, and teach them that cooking can be fun. Teach them about counting calories, keeping a food journal, but mainly show them what healthy food and proper portions look like. In the process, have plenty of breaks with physically-engaging, fun games - teach them how to play sports effectively using their weight to their advantage - let them play with children who love sports so they learn that physical activity isn't a chore.

These children are carrying around an extra person-worth of poundage. If they work off that weight personally, they're going to be strong, and they're going to have an incredible self-worth to go along with it. If you teach them what it looks like to eat right, and instill in them an interest in sports in the process, it might just work. They'll leave feeling empowered, and will have the tools to change their family's way of life.

snowy · 07-20-2011, 01:33 PM

There are some flaws in your suppositions about school lunch programs, genuinegirly. Yes, what you suggest would meet about half of their dietary requirements. My workplace participates in the USDA's Child and Adult Care Food Program (http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/care/ChildCare.htm), and thus we have to follow the USDA's guidelines when it comes to serving food. They parallel what is required for schools closely (http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/lunch/), as we are both required to meet federal nutrition standards. A child of school age must receive food in five categories at lunch: bread/grains, protein/meat, vegetable, fruit, and dairy. Any substitutions must be accompanied by a medical waiver stating why the child needs that substitution. For breakfast, a school age child is required to receive a serving of bread/grains and a serving of fruit or vegetable, along with their serving of dairy. Other components may be added, but that is the bare minimum. We have to serve food this way, or we do not get reimbursed.

The problem is with reimbursement. Schools are expected to feed children quality food on a shoestring budget. The federal government has set a great many requirements about the food to be served, but they have not provided the money to support those requirements. Further, on your comment about pizza and ice cream: schools are not allowed to serve foods of minimal nutritional value in competition with foods of nutritional value: http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/lunch/_p...Foods/fmnv.pdf This is something that has come about since you and I were in school.

Generally, the whole thing is a money problem. Health classes and physical education classes are being cut these days. We're spending money subsidizing unhealthy foods instead of healthy ones, and therefore, when schools look to spend their dollar on a lunch, the calories aren't as high of quality as they could be. Prepping healthy foods takes more labor in the kitchen, and schools need to cut labor costs, too.

I've spent a great deal of time researching this problem. I wrote a practice grant last year for a class that laid the groundwork for a program I called Lunch 101. It is aimed at teaching middle school students nutrition while they learn the skills to prepare a healthy lunch on their own. I had to do a comprehensive literature review as part of writing the practice grant. During my research, I found that there are many issues that contribute to the childhood obesity epidemic. For instance, many parents do not know how to read a nutritional label themselves. They don't know what healthy means. Additionally, the rate of fast-food consumption--outside of school--has rocketed in the last twenty years. Finally, most parents underestimate the weight of their children.

I don't think the solution is taking these kids away. Doctors know about as much about nutrition as many parents do! I think the real solution is referring families to good resources--registered dieticians, for example.

Ourcrazymodern? · 07-23-2011, 08:32 AM

Overweight DOES NOT = overnourished. Children should not be taken from their parents unless they're endangered. Is fat dangerous? At what point? At what point do our systems have any right to step in & interfere with nature weeding out the stupid? Never.

ASU2003 · 07-25-2011, 06:11 PM

Quote: