Cj-B said:

Webster10 said:

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Sure, an adult has every right to do that to themselves but a child has no choice but to eat what is given to him/her and can't afford to change their options for quite sometime, not to mention like their brain won't be developed fully for sometime either.

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A child is fully capable of choosing to refrain from eating unhealthy foods served to them by their parents. What would any decent parent do when they see their child making a conscious effort to eat healthier? Force some big macs down their throat, right? No. Parents often support their children especially on something fundamentally positive such as eating a healthy diet. Their brain isn't fully developed until the mid twenties. Should the government control the diet of children through their mid twenties?

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They can't make clear and proper judgement. This way of eating becomes a habit and in turn a forced lifestyle as well.

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Children aren't good at deciding to do something that will affect their distant future. They are perfectly capable of making decisions that effect themselves in the present. You eat something unhealthy, you get fat. Any child knows this and can easily make an effort to avoid eating unhealthy foods. Sure, eating unhealthy foods frequently as a child could in turn make it become a habit. Does this mean the parents are actively forcing them into an unhealthy lifestyle? no.

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I think it's harmful, the parents can see the damage on the bodies and do nothing. I do believe they should be held accountable for the physical damage. I also truly believe happiness can be better attained from a healthy lifestyle rather than a junk filled one.

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Everyone, including the extremely incompetent children as you think they are, are very capable of realizing eating unhealthy is harmful. The parents are providing the children with food. They are not forcing this food into their throats.(ever heard of the expression, you can lead a horse to water but can't make it drink) The child is culpable for his/her own obesity. Say a parent signs their kid up for a gymnastics class. The child falls and breaks their leg. The adult saw the opportunity for something bad to happen and didn't actively prevent their kid from succumbing to this "badness". They should totally be held lawfully accountable for it, right? "I'm healthy so anyone that is unhealthy can't be as happy as me." And there the complete and utter narcissism reveals itself

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However, it looks like we're going to have to agree to disagree.  We've shared our sides it'll probably just be a loop or a fight from here.

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I will disagree with you and calmly explain why, not fight with you. But if you want to back out now, I can't say I didn't see it coming.


I would really just like some clarification on the hypothetical law you are so adamantly upholding.

Your current definition for this new law is, "giving zero interest towards your child's health and weight should be criteria for being indicted of child abuse."

Do you understand how absurd of a suggestion that is? What kind of society do you want to live in? One where a random citizen can decide how someone else parents their children? That society would, frankly, suck. The current system that we have now is proven to be a better mode of operation. Implement some laws that promote the common good while preserving individual freedom. If the kid wants to eat himself to death, that is their business and their business alone. Randoms on the internet should not be able to project their morals onto others via laws. That would be stupid.

Let's take a moment and apply your own logic to another situation. Coming from a purely biological standpoint, being fat isn't good. Not only does impede an individuals biological functions, it has other consequences as well. Being fat makes you less likely to end up with a reproductive mate(fat=ugly, blunt but true and I'll post studies to prove it if you'd like me to).

This is a problem, wouldn't you think? Certainly we would want our children to not only be able to perform their individual biological processes with the utmost efficiency, we'd like them to have physically admirable characteristics to allow them to mate and pass on their genes(biologically the only point of life.)

So ultimately, being fat impedes someone from passing on their genes to an extent. This is horrible, and needs to be fixed, correct? Laws should be passed keeping from the phenomenon occurring, correct?

You know what else impedes passing on one's genes? Homosexuality


Bottom line: There is no place for a law such as this in American society. And I am thankful for that.

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lolno. You must've had some of the most permissive parents ever if you believe any such thing about the child having the right to choose what they eat cuz thats a big fucking assumption. As far as my parents were concerned if I refused food than I could go without. Either you eat what you're given or you get nothing. When you make no income and your parents are doing all the shopping and cooking then you get absolutely ZERO choice in your meal plan.


Haha are you seriously comparing being a fatass to being homosexual though? That's quite possibly one of the dumbest arguments for anything I've seen in quite some time now. The two situations aren't even remotely related

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A child can chose not to eat an unhealthy meal. If the child consitently refuses to eat unhealthy meals, what kind of parent wouldn't start cooking healthier. Usually the kid is the one refusing to eat vegetables and demanding sweets and other unhealthy food. The rest of the first paragraph is a huge

It's clear you didn't understand the comparison.

Obesity and homosexuality are both lifestyles that impede one's biological purpose in life; to pass on your genes. Should parents be indicted of child abuse for letting their children succumbing to either of these conditions? For the last time, FUCK NO. To even suggest so is umcomprehendably stupid.

Cj-B said:

I think you'd struggle to find a child willing to refuse to eat for many consecutive meals because the food is unhealthy. Plus expecting parents to simply capitulate is, again, a massive assumption that doesn't conform to reality.


Being raised eating nothing but fast food and similar trash and developing an addiction to it doesn't share any of the same characteristics as finding the opposite gender sexual attractive beyond that they both inhibit the spread of that particular set of genes....which this thread wasn't about until you brought it up. This was about how eating shit food directly harms the health of the people eating it. Homosexuality doesn't cause adopted children to become gay, nor does it damage the physical health of the homosexual unless they contract an STD (which is universal to both genders, not specifically homosexuals). Spending their childhood eating shitty food DOES harm their health and DOES form a habit of eating that kind of food.

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And your first sentence sums this whole thing up. The kid isn't willing to make an effort to eat healthy. That clearly means he should grow up parentless and only get to see his parents once a week behind bars during the visits to prison, right?

I'm done with this pathetic thread. Try to impose your morality on someone else via law. Let's see how far you get.

ThatKidWithTheFace said:

I say we just start killing off all the fat people.

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Webster we're talking about children here. you can't seriously expect a seven year old kid to make an effort to start eating healthy.

14+ year olds are a different story. They can decide by themselves what and how much to eat much better than children can.

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Hey man, I don't know how education works in canada but in America I was taking a course about nutrition and physical fitness by age 5. Even earlier it was clear to me because my parents, like any other parents, taught me about nutrition and fed me what they cooked that night I didn't become 200 pounds at the age of 10. I have a BMI of 19.5. I would've had to, as a child during childhood, make a serious effort to demand that much food to become a weight as asinine as such that has been brought up earlier in this thread. You really think the best thing for a child that has an eating disorder is to strip his parents away from him? Audit him while you're at it, goddamn. You want to turn this kid's life into a hellhole of living foster house to foster house and only being able to visit your parents at the prison? Seriously what kind of sick person wants that to happen?

Not to mention the tax dollars being spent on this whole ordeal. It is laughable to suggest that the government, 1.) somehow monitor the BMI of everyone in America under a certain age(to all others than alexis, what do you believe this age should be? Alex has specified he thinks it should be 14)? What would this BMI be? 30? and 2.) actually waste manpower and resources on locking up his parents for years and putting him in a foster house. Honestly way to fuel the prison industry even further, good job. You have successfully ruined a whole family and are using tax dollars because of this. Not to mention that whatever small fraction of the GDP they were contributing to is now as well. This would be a horrible law for so many reasons.

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If there is a 6 year old kid who is becoming too overweight to the point where their future health is becoming a risk, Child Services SHOULD intervene. It shouldn't be ignored and it shouldn't be solely up to the parent to decide how the child eats.

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Obesity is a life style disease just like alcoholism or chronic cigarette addiction. If you're letting your 6 year old smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol, child services will be all over your ass- you'll probably lose all legal custody of your child. Letting your kid eat so much junk food is just as bad, we just don't see it that way for some reason.

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I'm not saying the parents of morbidly obese children should immediately be thrown behind bars or charged. I'm saying that child services should legally intervene to make sure that the parents make an effort to change the child's diet, etc.

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Euphie said:

Exactly this ^
Also it is very very rare for obesity to be in genetics, it's usually passed down through eating habits. A child has no control over this. And yes, I actually have seen adults force children to eat. My ex boyfriends mother, right in front of us, demanded her grandchild eat an over sized meal or he wouldn't get X thing several times. When everyone told her to stop her shit she just fed him the same thing with green beans (and entire can btw) on the side. Healthy now, right? There are fucked in the head people like this that believe fat = healthy. You can't put the blame on an easily manipulated child for being fat. Someone fed them enough shitty food to get them that way.

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Obesity is not influenced by genetics. Perhaps a slow metabolism but there is nothing about being physically inactive and having a tendency to over eat that comes from your genes. A child has all the control over this. The child could push its parents for a healthier diet. Or it could take the amount of food they give it and seek out more and more food and eventually end up becoming obese. This is not 100% the parent's fault, the child does have a mind of its own. Children are a hell of a lot smarter than the brain dead monkeys you're making them out to be. That is a sad story about your your ex boyfriends mother. However, is that justification for the government to be allowed to invade our private lives to the point of being a nutritional dictator? Hey, some easily manipulated children may end up being fat. Is this reason for the government to be able to dictate all of our lives? I really can't get passed that you want the government to be able to invade everyone's private life that vigorously and unchecked. While we all pay for it 

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Webster, I really don't think most children have any options in what they eat. I know the way I was raised, you either ate what was given to you, or you didn't eat.

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If you chose not to eat, you eventually would. After true hunger set in, you'd eat anything. Especially if you are a child. I doubt there is a child on this earth that will go on a hunger strike because their dinner was cooked with transfats.

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Also, if mom and dad are fatasses, you probably won't see much wrong with the idea of being a fatass.

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And the mom and dad should be condemned, even jailed because of this? Surely then, parents should be jailed for drinking in front of their children, smoking in front of their children, hell jail them for anything that you deem socially unacceptable right?


Just focus on the original post of this whole thread. The post that said parents of morbidly obese children should be convicted of child abuse. Please read up on child abuse penalties http://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/crime-penalties/federal/Child-Abuse.htm

Let's hash this out in layman's terms.

"Parents with morbidly obese children should be convicted of child abuse."
1.) What is the definition of morbidly obese in this scenario? I assume >30 BMI, no?
2.) At what age should the parents no longer be liable for their child's diet?
3.) Should other people and places such as the school cafeteria and mcdonald's but convicted as well? They did contribute after all.
4.) Does the kid receive any penalty? It was pointed out in this thread that obesity is somehow not a victim less phenomenon.
5.) What exactly should the parents receive as a penalty for letting their child reach the point of obesity?
6.) Should both parents be convicted even if only one parent is the primary cook?
7.) Should the parents be told exactly what to buy and cook for their child if they are found guilty?


The list goes on and on but are you now seeing how a law such as this would only prove to be problematic?

I personally think it is sick that parents would let their kids reach such an unhealthy BMI. But I don't believe that I'm entitled to project that judgement upon them So I simply butt out and let the parents raise their children how they want to. After all, they're not even my children, so why the fuck should I get a say in what happens to them?