Let’s Start Arresting Parents of Obese Children for Child Abuse

Yes, I’m saying it, child abuse.  When are people going to get it through their thick skulls? Fat people aren’t happy and fat kids are not healthy. How can we as a society allow our children to eat their way to certain death? We need to do something and quickly. I have been accused on more than one occasion of being a little too radical. Truth is, I want people to start taking responsibility for what is going on around them.

In order to become disciplined, children need to be disciplined in order to develop discipline. Parents today only want to be friends with their children. They allow them to create dangerous environments that have long lasting affects on the rest of their lives. Parents need to get in the game of raising their children. Part of raising them, is not allowing them to eat themselves to death. You are the parent they are the child. You make the rules.

Abuse and Neglect

For a longtime now schools have been the only parents for a majority of the children out there.  This means they are the first line of defense when it comes to abuse. If a child comes to school with bruises on his body, or has “ratty” clothes on or looks a little thin, social services is called in right away?  An investigation is conducted on the parents and if wrong doing is encountered the child is often taken out of the home. We need to take childhood obesity as a form of abuse and neglect. Parents, schools and social services need to take this issue seriously.

I’m not saying we should take the child out of the home right away like “The Brits” are doing…or maybe we should. A health official from London said, “Child abuse is not just about hitting your children or sexually abusing them, it is also about neglect.” Two doctors also stated: Dr. Colin Waine, the director of the National Obesity Forum in Nottingham, England, called Connor’s lifestyle “extremely dangerous,” adding he is at risk of developing diabetes in his early teens, and cardiovascular and nervous system problems in his twenties. “He’s really at risk of dying by the time he’s 30,” Waine said.

Pediatrician Dr. Michael Markiewicz agreed. “I’m not saying they can’t care for him, but what they are doing is through the way they are treating him and feeding him, they are slowly killing him,” he said.

Time to Step in

What I would like to see is someone stepping in and informing these parents.   They need to educate them on proper eating habits, proper exercise for their children and engage in extra curricular activities.  Teach them how children can keep the weight off and live a healthier life as they grow into adulthood. It sucks but no one likes to be proactive about obesity as is obvious by it’s skyrocketing rates.

The threat of punishment is the only clear way that parents will get the message. I wish it didn’t have to be this way but I don’t think we have a choice anymore.