Should Obese Kids be Put in Foster Care?

(istockphoto)

(CBS) Should morbidly obese kids be put in foster care? It's a provocative question, but that's exactly what a group of health care specialists on the other side of the pond are recommending.

Their logic? If children can be removed from a home because of health risks like physical and mental abuse or failure to care for health problems like asthma or epilepsy, why not a long term health risk like obesity which can create a life long struggle with diabetes and heart problems.

"Childhood obesity can be seen as a failure to adequately care for your children by failing to provide a healthy diet and sufficient activity, whether through direct neglect or more subtly through an inability to deny children the pleasures of energy dense fast food and television viewing," wrote the study's lead author Russell Vine in a paper published in the British Medical Journal.

According to the Los Angeles Times, there are already reports of children being removed from homes in America for health risks and the British report sites 20 cases in the United Kingdom.

But what does it mean for American children, who are increasingly dangerously overweight. Nearly twenty percent of kids aged 6 to 19 are obese, according to the Centers of Disease Control.

That's an awful lot of kids to put in foster care.

More at the Los Angeles Times.

Read the full paper here.

What do you think?

[unhappygrammy]

Foster care, are you kidding? What will our government do next? Start removing kid's for not brushing their teeth, not showering or how about not changing their underwear? When will this bull end? Abolish CPS and leave good families alone!

[barbaram99]

I was a foster child years ago as I am a sp needs person from birth. Everyone thinks foster home care is the answer for this/that. It is not. In my day,I was used for the money they got and children were warehoused. I have very little faith in foster homes. I am a American..I don't know about the UK. They have done chat shows on TV about this issue. The children eat way more than I, I am appalled , When I was a sp ed student years ago, there was an over wt boy at school and he would steal food from our trays..We would not give him things from our trays..He had to sit at the teachers table..We had recess and in high school phy ed and we had to take it.
Part of the problem is poverity..Being poor.
They have done TY chat shows on this very issue. The parents are partly the blame. I been in stores where a child will demand an item be it food or what not and if the kid can't have it will throw a fit..In our day no was used. There was no giving in when no was used.. I amm 55.

[DavidB2009]

of course not! easy answer...next?

[rwexler648]

Whatever these doctors may know about obesity, clearly they know nothing about foster care. One major study of foster-care alumni found that they have twice the level of post-traumatic stress disorder as Gulf War veterans and only one in five is doing well in later life. Several studies have found abuse in a quarter to a third of foster homes ? and the record of group homes and institutions is even worse.

Other studies including two involving 15,000 cases find that children left in their own homes typically do better even than comparably-maltreated children placed in foster care.

These doctors have forgotten one of the first lessons they were supposed to learn in medical school: First, do no harm.

Richard Wexler
Executive Director
National Coalition for Child Protection Reform
www.nccpr.org

[coloradoschildren]

Amen! You tell em Richard!

[janinelargent]

Has any of these brilliant Harvard types ever considered why so many kids are obese? Goverment interventions have already led to virtually every mom working full time leaving the children to be raised by daycare centers and yes, government run public schools. Government interventions have led to an entire generation of mothers not breast feeding. Instead they fed their children condensed cow's milk and corn syrup. No wonder we have so much obesity, food allergies, diabetes and cancer. It was government interventions that led to the destigmatizing of and financial incentives with unwed, teenage pregnancy. It was government interventions which lead parents to not allow their children out to play for fear of child abducters, disease carrying mosquitos, dangers rays from the sun, falls from playground equipment and bicycles. And despite the well documented morbidity and mortality associated with cigarette smoking the government continues to allow private companies to sell this poison at a profit. Huh? Am I the only one who doesn't get it, or am I the only one asking questions?

[girlygirl232006]

This is the most rediculus thing I have ever heard of. First of all, a child who weighs more than his or her peers does not mean the child is obese. We are all different and rather than encouraging hatred for those who arent like us (remember racisim and what that did to our country?) we need to accept others for who and HOW they are. The government has proven itself time and time again to fail at regulating personal issues. You cannot make an across the board law regarding personal choices (which is why abortions are still legal remember???) and have it suit every situation and there isnt enough room in the constitution (or in anyone's personal life to write this crap) to cover EVERY exception that could arise. Also, what happend to choices? Do spoons make people fat? No. Do fast food restaurants force people to eat their food? No. Do soft-drinks jump down our throats while we are sleeping and force us to swallow them? Of course not! Then they arent the problem. The problem lies with society in general. We are all so lazy that "convieniences" such as fast food, are appealing to us. VERY few people work in labor intensive carriers and the majority of the population has to belong to a gym to make up for it. Healthier food choices cost a fortune. That does NOT mean to tax the unhealthy choices so the healthier ones are lest costly. Its silly. People just need to be educated and let them make their OWN choices as they see fit, it is their life and their children. My eldest son weighs more than the kids in his age group but he is also about two feet taller than them aswell, he is solid muscle and therefore his BMI is high. Is he obese? Absolutly not. Is he unhealthy? Not a chance, he can run, swim, climb and karate kick his way out of just about anything. Lastly, NO GOVERNMENT AGENCY HAS ANY RIGHT, OR PLACE, to tell parents how to raise their children. That is the duty and responisbility of BEING a parent. Foster care is a horrible place for most children who are exposed to it. There are VERY few safe, happy and HEALTHY homes for the children to go to. Trust me, I know, my grandparents were adoptive parents (they were also foster parents themselves) of a few of foster care's most precious, and they had many MANY issues (MOST of which were due to previous foster care placements!!!) that they never completely got over, even with counseling and any help they could need. Foster care, or government assistance, should be reserved for the children who's parents are drug addicts and crazy alcoholics. Which btw would include most of the children of our congress memebers. (What, you didnt know most of them drink on a daily basis?)

[heavynne]

Most children that are obese have obese parents. I don't think it would be fair to take them from their parents. Obese people have been around since mankind. Not everyone is meant to be thin. All of this seems to be a type of control into people's personal lives. Regulation of restaurants? No, don't people have freedom of choice anymore? It doesn't matter anyway, because people are going to eat whatever they want. I am thin, have been all my life no matter what I eat. When I was in school physical education was required. It is no longer a requirement in high school, it should be. Most kids are lazy because they just sit around playing video games, listening to ipods, or on the computer. They don't get any physical exercise. So if they are prone to be obese they will be. I blame the schools and the society for the obesity of children here in the US.

[fossilgeek]

"No tendency is quite so strong in human nature as the desire to lay down rules of conduct for other people."
- William Howard Taft

I wonder what advantage the portly President Taft would have enjoyed had he been wrenched from the arms of his (apparently abusive) parents as a child.

[sunnyknik]

How about regulating fast food restaurants on calorie and fat content.

[tomanyt]

How about if you don't like they serve, don't eat there.