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 ...
That is what I thought. Thanks.
Weigh gain is simply a relationship between calories consumed and calories burned. The source and make up of those calories is secondary. You're trying to blame something other than the cause and it's just a calorie distraction.
Michael Phelps will sometimes consume 20,000 calories in a day and, like most people his age, he eats a lot of processed food and junk food. I don't care what you feed a lab rat but it will not gain weight if you put it on a treadmill for a large part of a day.
“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.”
Precisely.
Hard cases make bad law. Especially hard, extremely rare cases (How many 500lb kids has anyone here seen?).
Have you been to Alabama lately?
True. Exercise is a must. I still don’t like what they add to food though. I think it is better for you to eat fresh veggies/fruit & less junk food.
Actually, that's not totally true. The calories you consume in the form of sugar are different than the calories you consume in the form of protein or fat. Your body metabolizes those three basic sources of calories differently.
“That’s child abuse, I think to myself.”
That’s none of your business, I think to myself.
The issue with obesity isn't the source of calories so much as it is the relationship of total calories consumed vs. total calories burned.
The average American consumes too many calories and the source of those calories is, too often, from carbohydrates.
Another chapter in the Free Republic catechism, according to which:
Fat people = disgusting and pathetic
Smokers = noble and persecuted
OTOH, the ‘working’ excuse doesn’t cut it. That kid can’t be getting that many calories all by himself; mommy has to be using a ram-rod to push enough down his throat to hit that 550 mark.
Sometimes it is necessary to just say, “NO!”; and it is is a parental responsibility tio do so, reinforced with a paddle when necessary.
At about his age, it wasn’t unusual for me, at MY summer job, to buy 5 5/$ chesseburges, a cup of chili, and a POUND bag of fries for lunch, yet I “only” weight 1/3 of his weight. But I STILL got ragged on for being ‘pudgy’ by older, thinner, guys who couldn’t keep up with my working pace. 50 years later, I STILL don’t weigh half of what he does, though I still eat more than I “should”, and the doctor wants me to shed 30-40 pounds...but I do NOT want the goober-mint to give that the force of law.
Still, 550 pounds at 14 is one whole lot of “fast food”; something else is going on there.
Like I said, the latest research doesn't back up that assertion.
Remeber this factoid from biology class?: "A gram of carbohydrates has four calories, a gram of protein has four calories and a gram of fat has nine calories. Fat is twice as dense in calories than either protein or carbohydrates."
Hence they are NOT the same. They are not burned the same or processed the same.
I said total calories consumed vs. total calories burned. I'm not concerned with how many grams of fat, protein or carbs you consumed. I am only concerned with total calories.
Fats, carbs and proteins are metabolized differently. So are simple carbs vs. complex carbs. But, when you're talking about obesity, that discussion really isn't all that important. What's important is the total number of calories a person consumes vs. the total number of calories they burn. Michael Phelphs can eat 20,000 calories a day from fat, carbohydrates or protein (or a combination of all three) and not get fat. A couch potato can eat the same thing and become obese.
This is a pretty simple concept, really.
Whenever I see one of those shows where someone who weighs 600 pounds hasn’t been out of his bed in 4 years and needs a crane to get to an ambulance, I wonder WHO IS FEEDING THIS IDIOT????? If it’s not a crime it’s sure some kind of negligence as much as it would be to refuse someone food.
This Mom obviously loves her baby, but has no "off" button. She's also pretty lumpy her own self.
I always wonder how they bathe. Or get to the bathroom. I couldn’t deal with it. I wouldn’t enable somebody to weigh that much.
It has to be some form of mental illness.
I don’t know if if starts out that way. But after you get so huge I think it must be an addiction & a mental problem. I know if I put on my jeans & they are tight then I know I better cut back on eating & look at what I am eating.
Thank you, and to back you up:
Fiber has 4 calories per gram, but it cannot be used by the body.
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