Posted on 07/27/2009 9:00:00 AM PDT by AJKauf
In aisle six there’s a man wheeling a grocery cart filled with prepackaged and ready-to-make food: TV dinners, frozen breakfasts, macaroni and cheese, and similar items. The cart is also overflowing with sugary cereals and a variety of soda. The man weighs about 400 pounds. With him is his son. The boy is about 12-years-old and weighs close to 200 pounds. He’s pointing to things he wants — Pop-Tarts, Oreos, Rice Krispies Treats — and the father is throwing everything the kid asks for into the cart.
“That’s child abuse,” I think to myself. “That man is endangering the welfare of his child. He should be arrested.”
Of course, I was speaking hyperbolically. You can’t really arrest someone for what they choose to feed their child, right?
Now it seems as if my hyperbole wasn’t so outlandish after all. A South Carolina woman was arrested for criminal child neglect because her 14-year-old son, Alexander Draper, weighs 555 pounds.
When the boy’s mother, Jerri Gray, was asked for an explanation as to how her son got so dangerously obese, she said, “Well, a lot of times it had to do with lifestyle. A lot of times I had to work full time second shift or full time, third shift. And I wasn’t home a lot.” She explained that she would often purchase fast food for Alexander because she didn’t have time to cook due to work.
It’s easy to call the mother out on this. ...
(Excerpt) Read more at pajamasmedia.com ...
It's easy to see that you are a rabid anti-smoker. To start with no one on FR that I know thinks, or says, that smokers are noble and persecuted. Very few of them say fat people are disgusting and pathetic. You are comparing different things here. The article isn't about fat people, it is about people who allow their children to become overweight, not just a little, but a lot. Secondly, most people, on FR, believe that people can feed their children whatever and how much they want, they may not like it but they don't think people should be arrested for it. Smokers, OTH, are not talking about their children being allowed to smoke, they are talking about themselves as consenting adults being able to smoke. Either ban smoking or stop taxing it out of existence.
You are trying to prop up your anti-smoking bias with an apples oranges comparison, nice effort but it just doesn't fly, at least not with me, a non smoking fat person.
I have to disagree with you on this one. The reason our children are growing up fatter is that they don't do any physical exercise. The ones who are fat, for the most part, sit at home on the computer or playing Wii or Xbox or whatever. When they are not doing that they are texting their friends for hours on end.
If people want their children to get out and exercise they need to take the frickin' toys away from them and make them do what we did when I was a child: Go outside and actually play, when we were teenagers we didn't "play" in the strictest sense but we were always on the move and most of us didn't own cars and couldn't borrow the parent's vehicles either.
We ate far more calories than the kids today do and we were not fat except for a few exceptions. Physical work is the answer to obesity, whether it is having fun or actually working, exercise will thin you down quicker than any diet.
Pitiful for sure that a child should weigh so much. However, in England, social workers may remove obese children from their parents.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/parents-of-obese-children-charged-with-abuse-in-britain/
This is, indeed, a very difficult call. Do you call in “Child Protective Services” and label a 555 lb kid a victim of abuse by the parents? How is this different from any other abuse?
Frankly, I believe that when a kid gets to this point it IS neglect. However, gummit should NOT intervene. Unless cigar burns or bruises appear, the only thing anyone should do is mind their own business.
Your point is good. It is a slippery slope that one starts traveling when government starts making judgments about parenting skills.
I don’t care if he was eating fast food for a couple meals a day, if just regular portions, there would be no way the weight could get so high. I am not sure if it should be classified as a crime, but it DOES seem to be neglect.
Dude. The WORST MOTHER IN THE WORLD can’t make a kid that fat without some genetic or physical problem. You could raise a kid in that Witch’s house from Hansel and Gretel and, unless they have something wrong with them— they’re not going to get this fat. The Mother in this case may be negligent or not— but her negligence alone could not lead to a kid being 555 pounds.
When I first started working from home about 5 years ago, one of my coworkers was lamenting the move because she said there would be more temptation to eat junk food at home than at work. She was also concerned about the temptation to having the refrigerator there at her beck and call.
I told her there was a simple solution to that problem. No more junk food in the house. She said, "you don't understand, I have kids." Well, I do understand and if you want healthy kids, keep the junk food out of the house.
I noticed that over those 5 years, she has gained weight and I have lost weight. I also have an elliptical trainer in my house and I rarely watch a DVD on it unless I'm working out on it.
...One thing I have have noticed through the last few years is that girls don't know how to cook. Most of my 3 son's girls friends have no intention of ever cooking. One can't make anything that isn't frozen & goes in the microwave...
My grandmother didn't want to teach me how to cook so I had to teach myself right after I got married.
I already said children today are in the house far too much. I don't agree with it. I limit TV, video games & computer time. My child is in our pool all summer long, riding her bike, climbing trees & playing. Too many parents let their children run them. I see it all the time. Bratty kids who get their own way because the parents won't stand up to them.
She worked 3 jobs just to pay for the food!
Of course part of the problem is safety fears. Children generally are not allowed to roam around outside like I did at age six.
When I was a child I was a picky eater but gobbled cookies, candy, ice cream, etc. and I was always too skinny. But I was outside playing all the time. We would even walk to the HS football field to play one on one tackle football on the 100 yard field (Obviously the plays consisted of going left, going right, feint left and go right and other simplicities as we picked up the ball and tried to get past the one defender).
Watching a movie like THE FIGHTING SULLIVANS today is sad for an extra reason. Boys today often aren’t allowed to explore and freely play like the Sullivans.
No, it’s not a crime.
As Americans we have become heavier by the year. Not just because we have access to every kind of fattening food imaginable. Not just because we eat out as often and not. Not just because the Whopper and the Big Mac are half again the size they were in the 1960s. Not just because “do you want fries with that?” and “supersize?” are answered in the positive more often than not. Not just because in the mid-afternoon a candy bar is a great pick-me-up. Etc.
We eat because we can. Because it’s there. I’m as guilty as anyone. Put on fifty pounds driving between two towns one year, one day a week, because I’d stop at the Dairy Queen and have a Pecan Praline Parfait on my drive back home. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. The thought has me pavlovianing.
Mom could pack in the broccoli and carrots, but that doesn’t mean that for this kid he’d 1- eat them and 2- not gain weight anyway for eating too much.
As my Mom so nicely puts it: Portion Control. Know how big your stomach REALLY is . . . the size of your FIST! Let me hear it from those who ONLY eat “the size of their fist” at all meals?
[crickets?]
We’re all guilty of some kind of “too much of a good thing.” It could be sitting in front of the computer. It could be sitting in front of the television. It could be going out every weekend to fish or hunt or to auto races or . . . . We’re guilty for ourselves and our familes . . . UP TO A POINT.
This kid is hungry. His stomach has been trained not to feel ‘happy-full’ until he’s eaten a large quantity of food. And it could be healthy food, but eating an entire roasted chicken, a pound of cooked greens, and a plate of mashed potatoes isn’t good for anyone, either!
BACK when he was first in school, did anyone notice his eating habits? Is he stuffing his face with food because he feels empty from having no father in the picture (supposition), a mother who is off working “all the time,” perhaps no close relatives or friends, perhaps been told to “stay indoors when I’m not home?” What kind of play activity is the boy involved in?
WE have allowed Phys Ed to be removed from the school curriculum and we end up with FATTY kids (and adults). Duh??
Seems to me the Schools, the Teachers, the Social Service Agency, AND the Mom and Son need some therapy and guidance. The boy’s problem didn’t just start. It seems to me that Social Services is making a big deal out of it because THEY missed the boat and dropped the ball (mixing metaphors) and don’t want anyone to look in their direction.
YMMV.
Yes. Former fat child here and it’s not a matter of buying junk food. If I was going to overeat I would find things to overeat. Had nothing to do with my mother.
The gov’t should get out of our houses, refrigerators and lives. These extreme cases are not the rule, they’re the exception and they’re being used to put over the idea of gov’t intervention by shaming parents if their child is fat.
I have two teenaged nieces that are probably about 250 each and they’re both a bit shorter than average. Both parents are obese and they tend to eat a lot of comfort food and shun any exercise involving cardio. It’s a shame because they’re all really nice people, but simply will not listen to anyone who tries to encourage them to eat healthier and exercise more.
I have a 3-seater Sea Doo and was on it with the mother one time. The elder child tried to climb on the back for a ride and nearly sank us. The entire rear half of the PWC sank like we had a hull breach. It was scary because the weight limit on those should be enough to accommodate three adults, but it was obvious that we would have been way over the limit. And I’m not a big guy. Never been over 200 pounds in my life.
Not judging, just concerned and frustrated about a problem that’s growing more common with each passing year.
We swim here every day we can. I need one of those trainers. I tend to get lazy in the winter.
That's when having the elliptical trainer in the living room can help. No TV without moving your but for at least 1/2 hour (I usually do an hour at a time).
Spot on.
From what I’ve read before, pre-made processed foods are easier to digest. Fewer calories are burned in the digestive process and more calories are stored by the body. Add to that all the massive quantities of sugars in most pre-made foods topped off with a sedentary lifestyle, and you’re talking fat-ass city.
No, but it’s a crime to raise them as Democrats!!
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