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Diploid
Cuban



Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 19,274
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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Child Protection Officials May Take Obese Son From Mother
#7797602 - 12/25/07 08:01 AM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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By Clare Murphy - Health reporter, BBC News
The year kicked off with the news that an overweight boy from North Tyneside could be taken from his mother by child protection officials.
Her apparent crime: overfeeding her son.
He was allowed to stay at home, but in the months to come various investigations - including one by the BBC - would uncover that obesity had been a factor in perhaps as many as two dozen child protection cases.
Some professionals said allowing a child to become obese had to be viewed as a form of neglect, given the potential health consequences.
Others believed that to treat childhood obesity as a parental crime was foraying into unchartered - and potentially rather sinister - territory.
Other obesity-related headlines rolled in thick and fast.
From fire chiefs considering charging to move large people from their homes to government equating obesity with climate change, fatness was never far away.
"When we first started talking about obesity as a problem, it was very hard to be heard," says Dr Ian Campbell, medical director of the charity Weight Concern.
"Now the pendulum has swung too far the other way - we hear nothing but. And the net result is that the kind of moralising the obese and overweight have always suffered has somehow become institutionalised."
No room at the hospital
One of the recent developments that particularly concerns the National Obesity Forum (NOF) is the move towards what has been described as "rationing" healthcare for the obese.
According to one tally, there are at least eight NHS trusts which have introduced some form of restriction for non-urgent operations on the overweight.
Such measures, which range from patients having to prove they have tried to lose weight to straightforward refusal to refer those above a certain BMI (body mass index), received something of an endorsement from then health secretary Patricia Hewitt earlier this year.
The fact is, doctors say, there are sound clinical reasons to delay treatment until patients lose weight. The operation is likely to be more successful, the recovery time shorter.
But Dr Colin Waine, NOF chairman, believes that the obese are simply being used by hospitals as a convenient way to cut down on expenditure.
"This is really about resources. You can't argue that denying a hip-and-knee operation to an obese person is in their interests, as it may well be the inability to walk about and exercise which is making their problems worse."
Recently the British Fertility Society has joined in, arguing that the obese should be barred from IVF as extra weight put the health and welfare of both mother and baby at risk.
This, Dr Waine claims, is "discriminatory".
Switching seats
And the constant debate about the problems fat people pose can get very tiresome for those on the receiving end.
"There's always been prejudice," says Vicki Swinden, founder of Fat Is The New Black.
"But what's changed is that this now seems to be totally acceptable. It's perfectly legitimate now for a person standing in an airline queue to say: 'I'm not sitting next to that person, they're too fat.'"
Fat Is The New Black argues that being fat does not necessarily mean you are not fit, or prone to ill health, and indeed this stance has been backed up by several studies.
Most recently, a major US investigation found the overweight had no higher risk of dying of cancer or heart disease and overall lived longer than those of a "normal" weight.
Too much doom
Yet no-one seriously contends that obesity is not a problem - even if there is debate as to how great a risk it poses. But there is suggestion that perhaps we are harping on too much about it.
"It's got to a stage now where it's actually hard to get any useful messages across because people have heard so much, often contradictory, information, that they just think: obesity blah blah blah," says Mrs Swinden.
The Health Secretary Alan Johnson recently said obesity was a problem "on the scale of climate change".
Increasingly there are fears that we hear so much about the doom and gloom of global warming that we have started to switch off.
"We don't want this to happen with obesity. We know what the problem is. We don't need more reports, more studies, more talking," says Dr Waine.
"We just need to get with it now: the government, the food industry, the community and the individual - we need to get cracking."
bbc.co.uk
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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fantastical
Strangler!
Registered: 11/18/07
Posts: 89
Last seen: 13 years, 7 months
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Re: Child Protection Officials May Take Obese Son From Mother [Re: Diploid]
#7797952 - 12/25/07 10:47 AM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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Obesity does not happen overnight, it takes years of terrible habits with eating and lack of exercise. A child does not know better, and the parents are the ones who are supposed to look after their well being so the parents should be accountable. If parents don't have the time to play with their kids and keep them active, rather than shove them infront of the tv with a large bag of doritoes maybe they should have used a fucking condom because they are bad parents. Obese people are worse than junkies, if they gave a shit about themselves they would change thier lifestyles before they become 600 lbs. If I hit my hip with a hammer by choice and need surgery, well obviously I am an idiot and somone who got hurt in a more legit way (like a car accident) should get in to surgery before me, same thing goes for the obese...they did it to themselves. Oh and why should somone normal size have to sit next to an obese person on a plane, they take up more than one seat, I am getting ripped off if they take up part of my seat. And they smell bad, and breath loudly. I give them little sympathy.
Edited by fantastical (12/25/07 10:48 AM)
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kidaihuan
First Growery Ban



Registered: 07/25/07
Posts: 3,173
Loc: Shanghai, China
Last seen: 13 years, 3 months
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Re: Child Protection Officials May Take Obese Son From Mother [Re: fantastical]
#7799258 - 12/25/07 08:23 PM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
fantastical said: A child does not know better
Thanks to lawsuits when kids call other kids fat asses.
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SlashOZ
:D



Registered: 10/20/06
Posts: 3,557
Loc: Following the water cycle
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Re: Child Protection Officials May Take Obese Son From Mother [Re: kidaihuan]
#7799474 - 12/25/07 09:57 PM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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lol at fat people.
-------------------- "Life sucks but in this really beautiful way" - Axl Rose "Life's a bitch and then you die that's why we get high cuz you never know when you're gonna go." - NAS "When people don't know what you're about they put you down and shut you out" - Black Sabbath "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind" - Gandhi "Look up at me I am God, look down on me and I am evil, look at me I am you." - Charles Manson. "Don't question my reality." - Me (as far as I know)
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Minstrel
Man of Science


Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 1,974
Loc: Hogtown
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Re: Child Protection Officials May Take Obese Son From Mother [Re: SlashOZ]
#7799519 - 12/25/07 10:18 PM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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The parents should take this as a favor! No moar fat kids to take care of. And the fat kid has it better too! No moar negligent parents fuckin' up his shit.
Parents these days are largely failures at raising their children. You can clearly cite me as proof. We need the state to step in, and force people to be raised in an appropriate manner.
Having a political mindfuck whist high can be quite fascinating. Merry Christmas, my neo-con friends. Keep up your traditional Christian values with your warmongering.
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