Posted on 11/29/2011 5:49:42 AM PST by Libloather
Case of 200-pound 8-year-old in Ohio renews question: Should parents of obese lose custody?
Article by: THOMAS J. SHEERAN, Associated Press
Updated: November 29, 2011 - 7:16 AM
CLEVELAND - The case of an 8-year-old Cleveland Heights boy taken from his family because he weighs more than 200 pounds has renewed a debate on whether parents should lose custody if a child is severely obese.
The boy was removed from his family and was placed in foster care in October after county case workers said his mother wasn't doing enough to control his weight. The boy, at his weight, is considered at risk for developing such diseases as diabetes and high blood pressure. Government growth charts say most boys his age weigh about 60 pounds.
Roughly 2 million U.S. children are extremely obese weighing significantly more than what's considered healthy.
Cuyahoga County removed the boy because case workers considered the mother's inability to get his weight down a form of medical neglect. The county's Children and Family Services agency said Monday it stood by its custody move, which was approved by a judge.
"We have worked very hard with this family for 20 months before it got to this point," agency Administrator Patricia Rideout said.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
This is just one step toward the goal of giving the state the ability to take any child away from their parents for the slightest reason. Next is declaring certain parent’s beliefs dangerous to their children and taking kids away on that pretext. We’ve already seen this with the couple who had their kids taken away because they named their son “Hitler” and gave Nazi names to other children. The ultimate goal is to take children away from Christian parents whose religious beliefs conflict with socialist, secular ideologies and anyone else who dares to confront the state. The only thing Orwell got wrong was the date.
That’s what his doctors said
but hey- freepers are so much smarter than the doctors and social workers
“Do you not think that over the past 20 months social services has not tried all of that?”
I don’t have any idea what Social Services tried/didn’t try or offered in way of help. I don’t have a great deal of trust in Social Services. I have seen where they have sent home a toddler from the hospital with cigarette burns all over her little body. Sent home to the same idiot who was burning her in the first place. With so much emphasis right now on a certain weight, there is the possibility that an over-reaction has occurred. To separate a boy from his parents and shove him into a foster home (where people are paid for each child they take) is not helping the child IMHO. He’s eight years old and now living with strangers whose primary goal is to make him thin. No goal of psychological support, love, compassion. This will all pan out in court and the family has a PUBLIC DEFENDER. Public defenders are not known as money grubbing lawyers.
I have read the book, silverleaf. Apples and oranges. The child in the book was starved, beaten, psychologically screwed with beyond imagination by his nut job Mom. That child should have been taken and it was a shame that he dealt with so much horror before he was. This isn’t any way similar. IMHO.
60 some odd posts and no one mentions Prader-Willi syndrome, which is CLEARLY not the fault of the parents.
By a show of flames, how many who think the government overstepped here also felt that they shouldn’t have returned Eliene Gonzalez to his father in cuba, simply because we disagree with his politics?
I see the two opinions as contradicting each other.
Urban Meyer already has a commitment from the kid :)
This whole thing went before a judge-
the courts are notoriously reluctant to take kids out of families, I know.... Just try adopting one, read about all they go through before the system steps in and takes them
The question here is not of obesity, but of morbid obesity and a family’s failure to control it after 20 months of supervised home treatment and intervention
Big difference- esp since this kid is still only 8 years old
Morbid obesity has severe medical consequences if left untreated. Knowing the court system a bit, I also expect the doctors have documented for the courts their diagnosis and expectation he could recover with proper treatment they no longer believe he can get at home
This whole thing really pisses me off.
This whole thing really pisses me off.
We have an 11 yr old kid in our neighborhood who weighs over 200 lbs. His 12 yr old brother is just over 100 lbs. Both parents are normal. This kid can run like any other kid, but he could be a real threat to any pee wee football player.
That is what I meant, Penance. A child brought into the E.R. at 18 months with a skull fracture and cigarette burns on his/her body... should be removed for the child’s safety until the investigation is done. Now, if something odd occurred (a babysitter, a visiting relative) then fine. BUT, if the so called parent did this... the child should be removed permanently. Just because you give birth to a child doesn’t give you the God given right to beat the crap out of him or kill them. I think we’re agreeing here.
And how many stories have we read where kids were starved and nothing was done??? Where was DSHS then? Only when the kid was dead did they show up to investigate.
I would love to see what Social Services offered in assistance before resorting to the drastic measure of removing the child. For example, did the child get a FULL medical work-up to rule out some sort of medical/inherited disorder? Were the parents assisted with the help of a nutritionist? Were the parents given clear guidelines? How often did Social Services visit/call the parents? Was it once a month or once every 12 months? A lot of questions remain unanswered in my book.
Great tag line.
Obviously he is eating every waking minute of the day
If wishes were fishes. Is it a problem, yes. Is removing him from the home going to fix it, no.
What about babies born at 13 or more pounds in weight named, “Jihad”?
Should the obese lose custody of their own bodies? This is what we are coming to. This child has to have a problem. It’s the medical communities reliance on pills to treat symptoms rather than solve problems that is deteriorating the medical care in this country and the health of individuals. If there was a pill to take that would make everyone thin, it would be the top selling prescription. However, actually doing tests on the body to determine an underlying medical condition is too far beyond the ability of most doctors. I know of what I speak, I went through this for 15 years until I coughed up thousands of dollars out of pocket for a Dr. that actually cures disease.
Michael Oher ping... (OK, really a Sandra Bullock ping)
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