Overfeeding children to the point that they are obese is absolutely abuse. Not only is it extremely harmful to them physically but it is harmful to them psychologically. First, kids that are fed to stop tantrums etc are taught that food is a comfort item. Second, the torment kids suffer when they are overweight is indescribable. Regardless of whether the parent needs help or not and irrespective of whether or not they struggle with their own weight, it may not be intentional but make no mistake it is abuse. Just like we do not leave neglected children with drug addicts because the drug addict just needs help, we should not leave obese children whose lives are being cut short and made unhappy with parents who fail to provide them with appropriate nutrition because the parent needs help too.
Although I am not a regular poster here on YT lately, I have in the past posted about my own struggles with my weight, and healthy nutrition and teaching children good eating habits are something I am very passionate about . Now I love my parents and I respect them a great deal, but I would be absolutely lying if I said their attitudes toward food and the way I was fed as a child did not play a large part in my own weight struggles. I was a chubby kid due to over and inappropriate feeding; I could easily have become obese as a teen because I was taught to be an obese person by my family. Children learn behavior. Unfortunately I was mercilessly teased, keep in mind I was nowhere near as fat as the obese children today, and it lead to me developing an eating disorder, which I thought at the time was a natural response because I had never been around people with normal eating habits. Eventually there came a point in my life that I was living off 1 bullion cube a day, eating cotton to avoid feeling hungry, taking 10-20 ephedrine pills per day, and having weekly binges during which I would routinely eat $200 worth of groceries in a sitting and promptly purge. I fought desperately against the fact I reached 100 pounds, and I did so brutally. At 20 years old the size 0 at Old Navy was too big. I fit into the large size children’s clothing. At age 22 I had a heart attack! Not only did I have a heart attack, I had several problems. I was malnourished, dehydrated and had a severe electrolyte imbalance which caused the heart attack. I had edema, muscular atrophy, tearing in my esophagus, gastrointestinal bleeding, thrombocytopenia causing me to have suppressed immune system, ketoacidosis, osteopenia (think preosteporosis), I had not had a period in 3 years (I now may be unable to have children), my teeth that were rotting from vomiting (I did not choose my veneers I had to get them), I had a heart arrhythmia, and peptic ulcers. Essentially I had the body of someone 30-40 years older than I was. All to be thin, because I was a chubby kid, teased relentlessly and had just the right psychological make up to develop an eating disorder. Today I still struggle with my problem and it is difficult.
I guess my point is the parents of these children are either condemning them to poor health, shortened life spans and social exclusion due to obesity or they are creating children that will develop eating disorders that are just as harmful. It may not be PC to blame the obese parents but nonetheless it is disgusting and morally repugnant for a parent to subject a child to that all because some mom didn't want to hear them cry or was too lazy to make a decent meal. If the parents don’t fix the problem someone even if it is CPS needs to step in and fix it for them. |