Parents beware! If your child is fat, they might get to spend time in foster care. What? Oh yes, The Journal of the American Medical Association published a disturbing commentary yesterday by Dr. David Ludwig, an obesity specialist at Harvard-affiliated Children's Hospital of Boston, and Lindsey Murtagh, a lawyer/researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health. The article recommends that state intervention is necessary for protecting children who are morbidly obese. The authors explain that they feel that children who are extremely obese should be removed from their homes by Child Protective Services and placed in foster care until they lose weight. Apparently this practice has already been started in some parts of the country.
Don't get me wrong, there is a time and place for CPS. I will admit that as a school nurse I even referred children to CPS. I will also admit that some parents aren't very good at being parents and they do feed their children to the point of morbid obesity. But I don't see how it's in the "best interest" (legal terminology) of the child to be removed from mom and dad because they like to serve ice cream between meals or because they've invested in too many video games. There might be some appropriate legal sanctions for parents who fail to follow health care plans--you'd be surprised how many parents are non-compliant. But unless the parent is an immediate danger to the health and safety of the child, there is no reason to go so far as to remove a kiddo from mommy and daddy. Besides, a lot of the fat kids at the elementary school where I worked were the happiest.
My other concern about this new practice is that charts and standards are meaningless. Who gets to make the decision that a child is morbidly obese and subject to foster care? Are we going to base these decisions on growth charts? I hope not. One of my good friends had a baby who was super cute and very small. She was completely proportionate and healthy, but she didn't weigh much. She actually fit into the failure to thrive category on the growth charts. But she was healthy!!! The baby ate and played and functioned just fine. My friend should not have had to worry about the growth chart. Her baby was fine and is an adorable (and average sized) toddler today. But what if the baby had been abnormally chunky? Would she have been sent to foster care?
And don't get me started on foster care. Sometimes it's good. Sometimes it's bad. But is it really a gamble worth taking just because a kid is fat? Wouldn't it just be better to send the kid to rehab? At least you can sue for malpractice in a rehab facility. Even in law school, my Children and the Law class was taught that it's better in almost every case to place a child with some form of family before pursuing foster care. Of course, I didn't go to Harvard...
All I know is that the more government butts into our family lives, the worse we are. Even some fairly liberal-minded lawyers agree with me. Above the Law's article Should the Law Take Fat Kids Away from Their Parents supports me on this one. Please know that when you read about some Harvard educated doctor or lawyer, they don't speak for their entire professions. And please remember that if you want to keep making decisions on how to raise your own child, you better get involved in our "system" and contribute. Or else well-educated liberals might send your fat child to foster care.
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