Parents prosecuted for having fat children

[firecat]

I'm so inured to attacks on fat adults that they mostly only make me irritated these days, but this article in a Scottish news outlet suggesting that "parents of obese children should be prosecuted for neglect" (reported via Sandy Swarcz's JunkFoodScience blog here) makes me cry and feel frantic.

I'm not a parent and I'm not a fat child any more so why should I care? Because I imagine how much more terrified my parents would have been over my size (I was plump despite their sustained and intense efforts to make me thin) if they believed they could have had their child taken away, instead of "just" being shamed and pressured about having a fat child. Because I imagine what kind of life a fat child taken away from their family and raised in some kind of institution would have.

Although this is just some random doctor sounding off in a random news outlet, and there's no official legislation along these lines as yet, such government sanctioned kidnappings have been happening fairly regularly in the US. As a member of several fat acceptance organizations I hear about one every few months (when the parents seek help from the organization. I wonder how many parents don't seek help from the organization?). Sometimes I find out the outcome and sometimes not.

Comments

[dawnd.livejournal.com]

Scary scary shit.

(hugs) to you.

[dancing-star.livejournal.com]

This idea scares me, exspecially since they aren't outlining when they should be stepping in. I was an over weight child and my mom tried all kinds of diets & excerise requirements to get me to loose weight and it never helped.

[ailbhe]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6396457.stm

[snippy]

I think we're all aware that being a jerk is far more hazardous to the jerk's health as well as everyone who ever has contact with the jerk, so we should definitely sue this doctor for being a jerk.

[michaelsullivan.livejournal.com]

Wait, are you saying that this already happens in the US? That parents are presumed neglectful and children are taken as wards of the state against their will, just because the children are *fat*?

[fatfu.livejournal.com]

It's full-blown insanity. We have to care because fat kids can't defend themselves or understand what is happening to them. If the obesity epidemic is hard on us adult fatties, it's steamrolling the children.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

I have an idea how you feel. This, plus stuff Sandy S. has been posting about doctors trying to set up standards for meddling with how families deal with fat kids at the office really is getting my back up and making me want to cry, rage, do something.

As if fat kids aren't harrassed and put under the microscope enough as it is...

[lizw.livejournal.com]

I know. I had to stop reading that report this morning, because I wasn't up to dealing with it. I feel so fortunate that our kids seem to be naturally thin, because it means I can let them eat as I think is right for them without worrying about someone in officialdom coming for them.

[jillzilla.livejournal.com]

It's very disturbing to hear of parents underfeeding even babies because they are afraid the children will get fat. And reading that children are being taught that only food with no fat and almost no calories is "healthy". And that providers of bariatric surgery are trying to make it common for children. This is as bad or worse than any of that.

When did the world turn into my subclinically anorexic mother?