Should Obese Kids be Put in Foster Care?
Parents who allow their children to become obese and who don’t seek help for the problem are guilty of child neglect — therefore the government has the right to remove obese children from parental homes and to place them in foster care, according to recommendations in the British Medical Journal.
Child health specialists from England and Ireland contributed to the report. They pointed out that the government already removes children from homes where parents fail to get treatment for chronic diseases such as asthma and epilepsy. They also point out that two thirds of obese adults report being sexually or physically abused as children.
“Childhood obesity can be seen as a failure to adequately care for your children by failing to provide a healthy diet and sufficient activity, whether through direct neglect or more subtly through an inability to deny children the pleasures of energy dense, fast food and television viewing,” according to the report.
