Should the state take custody of children who are morbidly obese? This is a tough call. I have intense feelings here. I am a life long obese man. I have never given up, but have never defeated it either. I have an eight year old who is obese but not to the degree that this child is.
For the state to take the child, they need more than just the weight. The example in Cleveland heights shows that the county was working with the parents for twenty months to try to get the weight down. I think there is real danger here. Taking a child away who is not being abused in any other way is a very slippery slope. Yes weight is an important thing. I support the people that are trying to get us healthier. This does not however make the state the ultimate authority on this. Are there any obese people working for the agency? I think there probably are. Are they people working for the state that have obese children? I think there probably are. Will family or individual this child is place with get results where his own parents did not? This of course is unanswerable.
The act of taking away a child by the state is an extreme act. We have parents who are drug addicted, alcohol addicted that have their children. I believe there has to be overwhelming evidence to justify it. I have not been able to find enough information to make that determination, but I do believe we have to watch where we step here. Will we allow the state to take action beyond children? Will we allow the state to say you can't work if you are obese? Will we allow the state to dictate what you and your family may purchase to eat? These are dangerous precedents. I simply don't trust the state whether it be Federal, State or local governments.
We allow ourselves to believe that these people must be experts so they must know what they are talking about. The obesity crisis we are in the middle of coincides with a period of time when the state in the form of the federal government started telling us what is good for us to eat. The state tells us to fill up with healthy whole grains. This flies in the face of what has always been believed about how to lose weight. Much research has been produced to show that maybe carbohydrates have detrimental effect on our weight and insulin creation. It seems to me the science is continually evolving, but the state has no tolerance for that. The food pyramid says it knows what we should eat. Do they really?
The results of fifty years of people getting fatter and fatter may tell a different story.
I don't have the answers but I feel intense empathy for the boy being taken away from his parents and still having to face taunting, lack of self worth and more. I am just not convinced that the type of people that run the BMV, the Post Office and the IRS are the right people to say what is the best way to improve an unfortunate predicament.
