Don't Punish Parents for Overweight Kids

Well, that didn’t take long. Less than a month ago I predicted that we’d soon see an American case similar to the British decision to remove an overweight boy from his mother’s care (British authorities later decided to leave the child with the mother). Now, in Spartanburg, North Carolina, authorities are threatening to take a grossly overweight seven-year old away from his mother (CNN video link) if the boy doesn’t show some weight loss in the next two weeks.

The mother in the Spartanburg case has seen numerous doctors about her son’s weight and claims to do everything she can to regulate his diet and make sure he’s exercising. If you’ve watched the video, you know the boy is massive in an almost unnatural way. The mother herself is by no means thin but it’s hard to believe, even in an unhealthy eating environment, that any seven-year old could get as huge as the one in this story.

Without knowing more than what’s reported by CNN, I have to say that this looks more like a medical problem than a case of parental neglect. But even if the mother is letting he child have too many candy bars, should she lose custody of her son? Is unhealthy eating to be treated with the same government interventions as purposeful malnutrition and physical abuse?

As I said when last I wrote on this topic, if the government is going to get involved in our national weight issue, turning parents into the enemy is not the way to go. I have no problem if municipalities and larger governmental organizations want to provide funds to help parents with overweight children. But to take those children away from a loving family is a terrible solution.