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Should obese children be taken away from their parents and put in foster care?

Should Obese Children Be Placed In Foster Homes?

  • Yes

    Votes: 1 2.6%
  • No

    Votes: 25 64.1%
  • It Depend (explain)

    Votes: 13 33.3%

  • Total voters
    39

SPC

Member
Joined
Jun 25, 2011
Messages
215
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Location
Missouri
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Very Conservative
This is another little interesting tidbit I heard on the radio today. Some more liberal states are considering taking overweight children away from their parents, charging the parents with child abuse, and putting the children in foster care. What's your opinion?
 
That's a hard one. I can imagine what constitutes as child abuse being argued forever.
 
If the child was in immediate danger, or an emergency situation, I would say temporarily to start.
 
The story kind of caught my interest because I knew kids in school who were diabetic and who had glandular disorders, all of who tended to be overweight.
 
Ah. That's still hard because I would say the fault becomes less and less the parents as the child grows up. It would certainly be taking away free choice from the kid and a lot of people don't like that concept very much. At the most, what you said might come down to very poor parenting, but that's me looking from the outside in.
 
It's a tough one. But it certainly could be considered child abuse past a certain point.

Parents who let their children get morbidly obese are subjecting them to life-threatening conditions, sometimes before they even break double-digits. Do I think that could be considered child abuse? Yes. Endangering your child's life in any other way is child abuse. Why shouldn't this be?

However, I think age needs to be taken into account, a medical work-up of the child needs to be performed to eliminate any natural causes of morbid obesity, and if the child is not severely overweight there should be a warning and counseling system.
 
:2rofll:

I'm sorry I....I just can't get past the title of this thread. It's too damn hilarious.

"I'm sorry m'am. We're taking your son away because you made him fat." BWAhahahhahahahah!
 
You would have to show that you're improving the child's situation. You start with a very, very large negative on that account--taking the child away from her parents. So whatever good there is to come of that has to be even greater than that immense harm.

I suspect that there are only a few cases, percentagewise, that could ever warrant such a thing.
 
Absolutely not.
 
You would have to show that you're improving the child's situation. You start with a very, very large negative on that account--taking the child away from her parents. So whatever good there is to come of that has to be even greater than that immense harm.

I suspect that there are only a few cases, percentagewise, that could ever warrant such a thing.

My thoughts almost exactly. Taking a child away from its parents and putting them in the foster system is extremely bad for them. The child would have to be in an extremely bad home situation for doing so to be justified.
 
No, that's ridiculous.
 
Given the state of foster care that would be defiantly no for just obesity.
 
I think that in some very extreme cases, the answer is yes.

I remember reading an article about this, linked here.

I also vaguely recall a judge ruling that a child's obesity was child abuse, so I guess there is a precedent that extreme cases warrant punishment, and action.

EDIT: I'd also like to add, that the kids shouldn't be taken away permanently. The problem is they don't understand the value of proper nutrition and don't take care of themselves. Make an effort to educate them, and give them the chance to slim down, and then I think they should be fine with their parents after that. And the parents should also be punished, obesity is an epidemic that shouldn't be taken lightly.

Lastly, for some cases as pointed out before where there is a medical reason for obesity, it wouldn't work the same way, because that really is different.
 
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Education and monitoring the situation would be far preferable to taking the child away from his/her parents, but if the parents show no willingness or ability to improve the situation for the child and the obesity is clearly causing health problems, it should be considered.

That being said, I would first go after those who force their children to be subjected to cigarette smoke in their homes and cars.
 
This is another little interesting tidbit I heard on the radio today. Some more liberal states are considering taking overweight children away from their parents, charging the parents with child abuse, and putting the children in foster care. What's your opinion?

No... the states are broke. Too many foo foo entitlements already. On the other hand, we will wind up paying for their chronic diseases and disability later...

Which ever is cheaper...

Cheapest solution... educate!
 
This is another little interesting tidbit I heard on the radio today. Some more liberal states are considering taking overweight children away from their parents, charging the parents with child abuse, and putting the children in foster care. What's your opinion?


So they can then be sexually abused like more than a quarter of the kids in foster care? Yeah sure that sounds like a solution.... "sorry kid, you're too fat, we're going to take you away from your overindulgent parents and place you in a system where you'll eventually be butt-raped by a caretaker or an older child.... isn't that lovely?"

Ack.
 
This is another little interesting tidbit I heard on the radio today. Some more liberal states are considering taking overweight children away from their parents, charging the parents with child abuse, and putting the children in foster care. What's your opinion?

What's next? Taking the kids away for looking at them cross eyed? This crap has got to stop.
 
If a parent were starving a kid to the point of anorexia I think we would all be for the child being removed from the home. If a parent is feeding a kid to point of obesity I see no real difference.

Define obesity. By the standards some agencies use, Arnold Swartzenegger was "obese" when he was a competition bodybuilder.
 
Define obesity. By the standards some agencies use, Arnold Swartzenegger was "obese" when he was a competition bodybuilder.

I'd say a BMI high enough that there are significant health risks associated with maintaining that BMI. I'm not a health expert, I don't know what that level is, but that would be a qualitative starting point.
 
I don't know if anyone else has advanced this idea but it does occur to me that with the advancement of the health care bill the government will use that as leverage to dictate to us the things we can and can't do. After all, if there the one's paying our health care bills then shouldn't they be able to tell us:

1. what to eat,

2. what not to eat (if fast-food becomes politically-incorrect they would have the power to wipe-out a whole industry),

3. that we get enough exercise,

4. don't participate in dangerous activities (motorcycles, skateboards, jet ski, parasailing, target shooting, etc.)

Do / don't do these things and there will be penalties.
 
in the military if you child is huge and medically obese then they how the soldier accountable and this can keep them from getting promoted or go to certain military schools. It’s a great idea and has been working for the most part in the military.
 
I don't know if anyone else has advanced this idea but it does occur to me that with the advancement of the health care bill the government will use that as leverage to dictate to us the things we can and can't do. After all, if there the one's paying our health care bills then shouldn't they be able to tell us:

1. what to eat,

2. what not to eat (if fast-food becomes politically-incorrect they would have the power to wipe-out a whole industry),

3. that we get enough exercise,

4. don't participate in dangerous activities (motorcycles, skateboards, jet ski, parasailing, target shooting, etc.)

Do / don't do these things and there will be penalties.

Going by the logic that some people use when saying that people that use foodstamps shouldn't be allowed to buy <insert bad food item here> then yes, you are correct.
 
Going by the logic that some people use when saying that people that use foodstamps shouldn't be allowed to buy <insert bad food item here> then yes, you are correct.

Oh Gawd.. Do not even get me started on this:2razz:
 
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