No, putting any kids into foster care (the kind that exists in NYC, anyhow) isn’t a wise plan. Besides, I don’t see why the solution can’t be provision of same intervention for the entire family. Do you know how I’d cope with being forced away from my family? By eating. NOT ideal.

This is one of those issues where it is really easy to have a knee jerk reaction without first understanding the facts.

In the article I read the whole idea was to temporarily separate the parents and children so they will both be able to work on their contribution to the problem in the absence of the other “baggage” that comes with the relationship with the end goal being to reunite them as quickly as possible. We are not talking about permanently taking someones kid away because they are a few pounds on the heavy side.We are talking about morbidly obese kids (in the 400+ pound range) whose lives are in imminent danger unless they immediately loose some mass and require a significant lifestyle change to get them started.

NO!

The parents need to be educated and that can be done while the kids are still in the home. Separating children from their families is traumatic and should be avoided as much as possible.

No, No, No, No and No.

All obesity does not stem from bad parenting, nor would be a very practical solution.

How about we get rid of Fast Food places first.

@tranquilsea

“Separating children from their families is traumatic”

So is the loss of a child because they fell over dead from complications related to their condition.

I feel like these people have never actually had any experience, first-hand or otherwise, with the foster system. Taking obese children from their families and putting them into foster care is taking them from a bad situation and putting them into a horrible one. The system won’t sort them out. It’ll simply give them even more issues to deal with.

While we’re at it, let’s remove children with Tay-Sachs, Coeliac disease, and cystic fibrosis from their parents as well. The nerve of them for passing on their troublesome genes! ~

Rather than separate them when the problem becomes an emergency and nearly unmanageable, how about intervening earlier so that separation is not a necessary part of the rehabilitation? Waiting until the child is in imminent danger to help hardly seems the most ethical choice.

@YoBob I take issue with doctors or the government thinking they’d know how to raise my child better than I…but let’s say for the sake of discussion I’d agree to fostering an obese child so he/she would learn proper nutrition and let’s say the parents don’t agree to change their personal eating habits or activity level:

Who’s to decide when the parents are able to have their child back? Doctors? The government? How much weight would the parents need to lose? Would someone be checking their pantry?

@SpatzieLover – I too take issue with doctors or government thinking they’d know how to raise my child better than I. OTOH, If someone’s opinion of proper child raising involves nightly beatings and sexual abuse, then most have no problem with removing the child from that situation.

There is little difference here. One is unlikely to become a 400 pound 12 year old without being helped along by parental involvement. That lifestyle is just as much a direct threat to the continued health and well being of the child as regular beatings with a baseball bat would be and it is exactly that sort of direct threat that current foster care mechanisms are there to intervene in.

Once again, we aren’t talking about taking someones kids away because they are a bit heavy, we are talking about extreme cases where without intervention the child is in imminent danger.

@YoBob And I just realized that all kids of Jehova’s witnesses (some of them, anyway) and some other religions who pray instead of getting their kids medical attention should have their kids taken away. Great plan, I’d support that.

I don’t think it’s possible to just say “yes” or “no” to this. The article was talking about kids who are so obese their lives are in danger. If the parents aren’t able or willing to make lifestyle changes to keep their children alive, they should not be able to keep those children.

Yes, there are other factors besides parenting that contribute to obesity. BUT, being a parent means dealing with those factors and not letting them control your family or your child. In this day and age, who doesn’t know that fast food is unhealthy and the advertisements for it is deceptive? It doesn’t take much time and effort to teach children basic healthy choices from a young age. As a parent, I actually resent the idea that fast food places, the media, advertisements, or whatever can be blamed. It’s my job to counteract such things. Using them as an excuse is basically like saying, “I’m a lazy parent.”

I don’t think foster care should ever be the first choice. It should be the last resort after efforts at educating the parents, monitoring the situation, and medical intervention has failed. I’m sorry, but if you have a three year old that weighs 90 pounds (almost as much as my 12 year old!!) because of poor diet and lack of exercise, you are failing as a parent and need help. If you refuse to accept that help or make changes so your child can survive to adulthood, you don’t deserve to be a parent.

I think it’s a horrible idea. Why not spend the money on family intervention and education programs?

Ripped from the bosom of their families, confused, upset, those kids are going to want to eat more.

@marinelife I agree. I also agree with @Simone_De_Beauvoir. If a family turns to food when they are emotional, the parents will eat to fill the void, as well.

I don’t see how anyone would think this would solve anything. Wouldn’t Over Eaters Anonymous for the entire family be a better, more cost-effective and emotionally stable choice to pursue? Even if it was court mandated in these special “super-obese” cases, it’s worth a shot.

No. The trauma of kids being taken from their families is worse than their obesity conditions. And for those that have emotional overeating issues it may, infact, worsen their conditions.
Obesity has many components, not just eating junk by parents who are not paying attention to their kids health.

The FACT is that while healthy eating and exercise IS important for everyone, we all KNOW that some people are simply more genetically programmed to be overweight.

Same goes for many animals.

I have friends who have two cats and one is morbidly obese, the other is ‘normal’ weight.

They both live in the same conditions, are fed the same amounts of food, but one cat is just predisposed to being a tank.

Plenty of kids and adults subsist on crap foods and do not gain weight.

It’s bad enough that overweight is the last socially acceptable form of discrimination and to remove children from their homes only adds insult to injury.

I am all for health, and not allowing oneself to become extremely overweight under ‘normal’ circumstances, but, I also feel that one cannot judge every heavy person as some sort of undisciplined, emotionally screwed up slob, that sits on their ass eating donuts all day.

Overweight children and people already deal with a shame factor for their conditions and removing kids from their families will only increase this shame 10 fold for all involved.

@Coloma you made me think about two hamsters I had as a teen. Both were fed the same, handled the same…they were so sweet and yet so odd to observe. One (the male) was obsessed with his wheel. He’d “workout” for 6 to 8 hours a day. The other (the female) would sit in her wheel to eat, then take more food and hoard it in her nest. She was seriously obese. Amazing to us: Both hamsters had the exact same lifespan.

I’m kind of surprised by some of the responses here. Maybe not everyone is reading the article and doesn’t realize the question is in regards to children who have serious, life-threatening medical conditions because of extreme obesity. Not kids who are chubby, overweight, or even obese but getting by OK. Kids who could literally die because they are so drastically overweight. If this was any other kind of medical problem not being addressed or treated by parents, would so many people still be saying removal from the home should not be considered?

I didn’t see where the article said the children should be put into foster care immediately. I do think the parents or guardians should have an opportunity to make lifestyle changes with all the support they need. If they don’t and the child’s health continues to decline to the point where he or she is hospitalized, foster care still shouldn’t be considered as a last resort to try to save the child’s life?

If you are a parent and your child is so morbidly obese that he or she could actually die and you don’t do anything about it, feeling ashamed is the least of your problems. Any kind of home situation that puts a child’s life in danger is unacceptable, whether its morbid obesity, physical abuse, starvation, or neglect.

@MissAusten I fully understand the predicament these kids are in. I happen to live in a community where the opposite happens. Kids get so stressed out by their Type A parents that they become control freaks and choose bulimia or anorexia instead of overeating. lots of the girls I went to school with were pressured by their doctor or lawyer parents to be perfect “A” students

Every family has some thing health or emotion wise going on. It just happens that everyone can “see” obesity. I’m not in anyway advocating that the parents are in the right here. I just don’t personally think they are more “wrong” than other parents.

@MissAusten

While I do agree, to a large extent, I also see it as a very controlling mindset as well.
I have an old friend that was one of 11 children from 2 combined families and she was the only overweight child amongst them. Obviously her parents were not neglecting her health, she was simply very predisposed to being obese. She managed to drop 100 lbs or so through gastric bypass surgery, but, even years later she is still 50–60 lbs. heavier than her ideal.
She barely eats at all!
While I agree some parents are neglectful in allowing their children to become obese, many are not and to start pulling kids out of their homes is reminiscent of a police state.

ONLY IF, it can be PROVEN beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the parents are negligent in their care should this be considered.

I agree with @SpatzieLover one must tread very cautiously when looking at any sort of drastic intervention.

This is a family issue that needs to be fixed with the family. Taking these kids out of the home temporarily will only give them a temporary reprieve if the root causes aren’t addressed. Once they are given back then the problem will only come back. The whole family needs to have counselling: nutritional and psychological with access to personal trainers who can teach them how to exercise.

I’d rather see the social services help the parents with advices or send the kid on diet.

It’s hard to prove family neglect. Or maybe the kids have health issues.

No. Without generalising, foster care isn’t necessarily a healthier environment for a child. Would it not make more sense for health professionals to interact with the family in their natural environment? The core issues might then be resolved and real change might occur.

Of course not.
First of all, who says that putting them in foster care will compell them to eat well and exercise. How many kids can be forced to eat carrots and jog around the block if they do not want to.
Second. Eventually, they have to go back home. To the same parents that enabled their fast food diet and sedentary life in the first place.
There have always been bad parents and screwed up kids. Let them be. Worry about your own kids. They require all the attention that you can give them. If you do it right, you won’t have much left to spread around.

@MissAusten I understand the severity of the issue. I just disagree on the idea that using foster care at any point will yield positive results. And unless it’s going to help the children, there’s no reason to do it.

I don’t think there is one simple answer. Because of Australia’s history with the “stolen generation” children are left in abominable home conditions for fear of being accused of contributing to another stolen generation. So often they die young after living wasted lives. The same could be said here, it may cause more trauma to be isolated from one’s family but they are probably going to die young if they stay.

I don’t want to have my taxes raised again to subsidize personal trainers and weight counselors for every family that prefers to eat crap rather than take the time to cook wholesome food at home. It is no more expensive, probably cheaper to eat home cooked foods than carry out or prepackaged grocery store foods. But it does take time and energy. I find it hard to believe that anyone could exist in this world today and not know that junk food is bad for your health. Everyone has a tv and even if you try to avoid the news or anything educational, it is almost impossible to do so.

One has to make a choice and you cannot force people to make healthy choices.

I wish there were simple answers, but I have yet to see one and believe me since I had to stare it in the face every day for 6 years, I have wracked my brain but have yet to come up with one or see the powers that be come up with one either.