Big Brother Says Our Kids Can't Be Too Fat

Seriously? If my son or daughter is overweight, I can get a visit from a social worker and the sheriff, and have my family split up and disrupted? But.........let me get this straight.......if a kid complains that his parents won't let him eat, or won't let him have a winter coat, or presents with obvious signs of abuse resulting from violence, that's okay, and social services will just "keep and eye" on the parents (whatever that means) and let the kid stay with them. But; with all the budget cuts, we have enough money to separate the families of overweight children and exacerbate the stress those children already experience! No joke; I read it here. Dr. David Ludwig, with Childrens Hospital Boston, thinks we should start reporting fat kids the same way we report battered kids.

A battered child goes through so much when social services takes him away from his parents. Not that it isn't ever called for; at times, it is. Often, siblings are split up, with no effort to keep any contact at all between the siblings. Sure, a cursery effort is made, but not much is really done to keep brothers and sisters together. There are times when it's impossible. A lot of parents don't want a child back when the child has been removed from parental custody. The child represents failure to the parent, and the parent would rather blame the child. Is it really the parent's fault if the child is obese, anyway?

Those are just a couple of problems with the whole idea of removing overweight children from parental custody. I can't help but wonder where the good Dr. Ludwig thinks he should draw the line between morbid obesity, obesity, and "chubby". Would a parent who isn't popular become the victim of community harassment if his kid was a little bit fat? This could create legal nightmares!

Ultimitely, the most obvious problem with Dr. Ludwig's wonderful brainstorm is this:

Jerri Gray, a Greenville, S.C., single mother who lost custody of her 555-pound 14-year-old son two years ago, said authorities don't understand the challenges families may face in trying to control their kids' weight.

"I was always working two jobs so we wouldn't end up living in ghettos," Gray said. She said she often didn't have time to cook, so she would buy her son fast food. She said she asked doctors for help for her son's big appetite but was accused of neglect.

Her sister has custody of the boy, now 16. The sister has the money to help him with a special diet and exercise, and the boy has lost more than 200 pounds, Gray said.

"Even though good has come out of this as far as him losing weight, he told me just last week, 'Mommy, I want to be back with you so bad.' They've done damage by pulling us apart," Gray said.

We have a cultural problem on our hands, and no family is perfect. Children are not encouraged to exercise anymore, and lot of schools will not even allow children to ride their bikes to school. We pump our kids full of drugs for ADHD, and discourage the very lifestyle that will help the most with obesity in children. There are so many conflicting messages! Each family with this issue, if it's really an issue, is going to have to find it's own way to cope, the same way each person with a medical problem has to find his own way to accomodate the medical problem. Forcing children to say goodbye to brothers, sisters, pets, and home, and telling them that they can no longer live with parents who love them somehow does not seem like the answer, when there are children in this country who really are in grave danger because of actual abuse. That may be the biggest conflicting message of all about Dr. Ludwig's recommendations. I hope no one listens to him.