on the news today a mother was aressted for neglect. what do you think. hes only fourteen years old.where was the intervention, where was the teachers, she says she was working. the kid is in foster care.he did not get this way overnight. what do you think.

posting a link to the news story on this would be best for dialogue on the subject..

I googled this and found quite a few links. Here is one:

S.C. case looks on child obesity as child abuse. But is it? - USATODAY.com

These are my thoughts. Should the mother be held accountable? Hell yes. Should she be put in jail? No way. She should be educated, her son should be put on a monitor, he clearly has a problem, and he should get help. My 13 year old step son moved in with us over a year ago wearing size 40 waist pants. With a balanced but by no means restricted diet (he still got McD's on occation) we got him down to a 34 waist. He looked great. He gained 8 lbs at his moms over spring break. 1 week, 8 lbs. A kid who loves to eat will overeat if not disciplined. Of all people, I know this. Once he is an adult, I can not control what he does, and I have no doubt he will gain again. But while his is living here, I am trying to teach him all the bad things that can happen, using me as an example. His craving for junk overrides anything I say to him, but I am trying. This mother needs some serious help! Her son should definately be taken away if she can not take care of him properly.

Very sad... I hope he finds the help he needs. I am sure that the mother probably didn't know how to handle it, and surely the health care system in this country doesn't look at the "whole person". He may have psychological issues, etc. that need help. I know there are many other kids in similar situations... education and a system to help the whole person is key!

I read an article about this case yesterday on another website. Man, this 1 is tough. Of course the mother of this child needs education about proper nutrition and parenting skills, but what about parents who's kids are anorexic? Both are eating disorders, just on opposite ends of the spectrum. The kids need therapy along with education about eating properly, as well as the parents. It's also true that most of the kids who get to this weight at such an early age come from families who are below the poverty level, and the parents can't afford the nutritious vegetables and lean meats their kids need to eat.

So, do we go around taking kids away from parents all over the country? Do we provide them with high quality food? I don't know the answers, but I know this isn't the only case like this in the country. They have taken physical education out of most of the schools, or have very little if they still have it. That makes it a problem for our entire society, not just the affected families. Where were the doctors while this kid was gaining all of this weight. Is it not their responsibility to step in and help as well?

Joan

That's like I was watching a thing on big medicine about a teenager who was 18 and was already at like 600lbs and I just thought - How can that happen? I mean yeah I know people over eat but that weight that early in life?

I think parental responsibility comes into it, yes, but I think obesity is a disorder that is not only related to the parents knowledge.

This comes into it becuase there are such strong links between obesity and socioeconomic status, but to some degree, society as a whole is to blame.

I have a son, who is almost 14 and is not 500 + lb but is definitely overweigh at 5ft 7 or so and about 180lb. I still hold out hopes he'll sprout - he shows all the signs of being very tall and has absolutely enormous hands and feet, and he has not hit puberty yet. So there's hope.

BUT - as a parent, especially one who has battled my own weight problem, i know the ins and outs of good nutrition. As a fairly well off person and as a person who had the priviledge of an excellent education and who grew up in a fairly typical upper middle class family I also know what a good diet is and have the means to provide it.

Which I do. I provide healthy foods, I cook from scratch, i do not feed my family take away food more than about once a month for meals, and for other special occasions, I do not keep Cookies, chips and chocolate in the house in the ordinary course of events and am more likely to make a cake from scratch for them after school than I am to buy commercial snack foods. My kids have NEVER had daily access to softdrinks, energy drinks or even orange juice - its Water or skim milk around here. We dont have dessert and I dont buy sugary Breakfast cereals.

My kids are allowed to experiement with sports, but it is a rule that they must play one and they must STICK at one. They have played basketball for about 8 years now since they were little and they have tried out various other things on top of that. Fraser has 2 basketball games and a weekly training session per week and he has about 2 hours of phys ed per week at school, fairly reasonable fitness activities, unlike some schools. I also limit the PS3 to one hour a day.

Yet he's much fatter than any of his friends and expanding. He has a simply enormous appetite He is lazy as all get out, if he's not playing his basketball, he's motionless on the couch. If he's not allowed to play PS3 or watch TV, he reads. He has zero interest in playing outside like his brother and sister.

So: he has a big appetite, no real propensity for activity, a bad attitude regarding exercise (despite the example I set) and a genetic disposition to gain weight. What the F..k more can I do than provide a good diet, ensure some sport is played and limit sedenary activities? Am I supposed to crack the whip, scream at him for an hour every day to FORCE him to go for a run? I can tell you, that's what it would take. The task is not possible, I cant *make* him do anything, although of course I try to encourage him that a daily run would do him good.

I believe giving children pocket money is important for a variety of reasons and I can and do lay down the law about what it is spent on. But I cant really know if he takes a few dollars and spends it on lollies at school.

I've taken him to the doctor about this as he's asthmatic and quite unfit, I worry about the effect on his asthma. The doctor's advice is what you'd expect, eat less, exercise more but he cant give me any idea how to make a reluctant child do that. There's nobody that specialises in that. What more can I do?

If he had hit 300lb by now, I'd be trying to get him banded. I think that's where we'll be in two or three years. But again, he has to want that.

I also dont fall into the trap that I see a lot of parents do. As a teacher, I know we enforce healthy living practices in our schools in Australia and that we run fairly comprehensive educational programs on it. But it doesnt go far enough. We teach kids and parents that chips and cake are not healthy everyday foods for growing kids and that having lunch orders (our version of school lunch, usually involving chicken nuggets, pizza slices, meat pies etc )are not for everyday. There's token efforts made to make school canteens healthy - in Victoria schools are not allowed to sell soft drinks like Coke - but they sell flavoured mineral water, exactly the same thing! They're not allowed to sell energy drinks, but they sell a non caffeinated one, which is basically a soft drink - bubbles, sugar, etc. But its not called Coke, its an energy drink so its healthy right? Its just rubbish.

So parents send their kids to school with a white bread sandwich full of Nutella or jam or whatever, with a couple of fruit sticks and muesli bar. Just a crap lunch but its not chips, cookies and junk food so people think that's healthy!

I dont even fall into that trap and I still have a fat kid.

I honestly dont think I could try anymore than I do but when a kid loves eating, hates exercising and doesnt particularly care about their weight or think they look bad coz they havent reached that age yet, there's very little to work with. THEY are the only ones that can lose weight.

I think 555lb is the other end of the scale and that mother must certainly have been failing to raise her kid properly from a nutritional standpoint but there's such a huge grey area in between that I personally dont think we can hold parents entirely responsible. I feel for her becuase I can imagine its entirely possible she's worried herself sick over him, argued with him, tried to help him and now she's being judged harshly for what everyone perceives as HER failure.

I am sorry to say but I think it is the parents fault. Have any of you seen Maury with the 100-200 lbs children? I mean kids like 2-6. If your kids is 2 and eating snack cakes by the box daily then the parents should be held accountable. A friend of mine's brother suffered from some disease where he ate all the time and couldn't stop. He never had a full feeling. He became obese and eventually passed away... There are all type of reasons children are over weight. If there is no medical reason children that young should be over weight, then it is the parents responsability to watch what the child eats. But they are coming out with studies that are saying obesity is genetic. If 1 parent if over weight the child has 40% chance of being overweight. If both parents are overweight then they have 75% chance of being overweight. This is what I have read. Whether is it true or not. I dunno. I do know that I have a whole family including cousins, uncles, grandparents and parents who are all over weight.... So alot of family member are just content being overweight because everyone else in our family is. Well not me, thats the reason for me wanting to get banded and I will be next week... woohoo..... Jennifer

555 pounds is really extreme, but at 14, he does have the ability to choose for himself. By the time I hit 15 I was 5/6 and just about to break the 200 lbs mark. My parents made me participate in sports so I got plenty of exercise. When I was 12 and 150# they sent me to weight loss camp. They sent me to nutritionists and went to weight watchers with me. But none of that mattered by then. In 5th and 6th grade I would eat my lunch and then eat half of the lunch that my skinny friend didn't eat. I would sneak food if my parents were upstairs and I was downstairs. In junior high and high school my mother trusted me to take lunch money from her wallet and instead of taking the $1.50 for a hot lunch entree, I would take about $5 and spend it on extra food. I'm ashamed of my actions back then, but I was a food addict and those are the actions of an addict, no matter what the addiction. It was not my mother's fault for "neglecting" me.

If anything there was too much emphasis on my losing weight. My sister was chubby too and became bulemic as a result. While it does show that there were things wrong with the way things were in our house, it was far from neglect. A obese toddler is one thing, but an obese teenager or even pre-teen has a mind of their own and if they are addicted to food, they will do what ever it takes to get food. No parent can watch their child 24/7 and control every morsel that goes into their mouth.

The question then becomes, what did this mother do to help her child overcome this addiction? Did she encourage him to exercise, did she seek medical or nutritional help? Those are the kind of factors that should be evaluated to help with this case. If the charge is neglect, then it should be shown that this childs weight problem was a result of neglect.

Do I blame the parent? I'm not for sure. I have mixed feelings on this. When I was 9 my parents put me on WW. Bought a cute dress that was of course way to small for me as an incentive. What this done was, drove me to sneak food, not just then but for a lifetime. I wasn't really fat at 9 yrs old. But by the time I was 14/15 I was 225. I remained that weight for yrs. I was chubby at 9. But they didn't make chubby clothes for girls, but they did make huskeys for boys of that age. Who's to say if my parents didn't do that what I would have turned out like. Would I have gotten fat or would I have lost my baby fat? In all fairness my parents went on WW also. They were both heavy. I found out after my mother died that her mother weighed over 300 lbs when she died. (mom didn't talk a lot about her family) So I don't know. We aren't there with this mother. We don't know what if anything she tried. I agree after a certain age a child will, if they want food, find a way to get it no matter what the parent does.

When I was 9 my parents put me on WW. Bought a cute dress that was of course way to small for me as an incentive. What this done was, drove me to sneak food, not just then but for a lifetime. I wasn't really fat at 9 yrs old. But by the time I was 14/15 I was 225. I remained that weight for yrs. I was chubby at 9. But they didn't make chubby clothes for girls, but they did make huskeys for boys of that age. Who's to say if my parents didn't do that what I would have turned out like. Would I have gotten fat or would I have lost my baby fat?

I completely agree with you. I always loved food and was chubby as a kid, but when my parents sent me to weight loss camp at 12 it turned it into an obsession for me. I think focusing on a child's weight issues as opposed to just concentrating on making healthy life choices, can make things worse for that child. It's not always a matter of neglect. Sometimes the attempts to fix the prollem actually exacerbate it.

These are my thoughts. Should the mother be held accountable? Hell yes. Should she be put in jail? No way. She should be educated, her son should be put on a monitor, he clearly has a problem, and he should get help.

One would think that a concerned and engaged parent should at a minimum be able to recognize something isn't right and seek help to deal with the problem. Education is all fine and good, but saying you're "too busy" is BS only demonstrates the level of neglect.

He's 14. In most places I know that pretty much means he's unemployed and entire dependent on at least one adult for support, even if that support comes ultimately from the state. She -- practically guaranteed -- controls what money ends up in his wallet for food. She -- again, practically guaranteed -- controls what food goes into the pantry. If her son is sneaking food from the pantry, there are locks available. If she's too busy to cook consistently, she also is in the ultimate position for placing orders at restaurants. Did she even exercise the lowest level of parental control about his eating behaviors?

When ordered to hand the child to a foster home, she skipped. Under any circumstance, that alone is worth jail time (as her $50k bail shows).

And, of course, where was everybody else? I'm sure she felt she was trying to keep things under control, but so does a drowning man -- do you wait for him to speak clearly and coherently before diving in to assist? There's some accountability there to be scrutinzed.

To be honest, I *want* that Pandora's box openned. Parental rights are cute and all, but a lot of "parents" seem to view their children as hobbies they can dabble in, or simply a potential side effect of a night in the back seat of the Oldsmobile.

I have to say that putting to much attention to a child's weight can make the situation worse to. My mom took me to the doctor and had me on diet pills when I was 14-15 years old. My mother would also go a couple of days without eating if she gained a few pounds. Of course, most of her family is obese, so she is obsessed with her weight. Now that she's in her 70's, she has gained a few extra pounds, but she still diets most of the time. So my examples weren't the greatest either, which I know played a huge part in me being obese as an adult.

Joan

I have very mixed emotions about this. While parents are responsible for their children, children are individuals. A 14-year-old has considerable autonomy, not to mention time spent away from home---as the mom of a teen boy, I can no more control what he eats than I can control my dog's desire to chase rabbits.

I can control what comes into the house, and I do. I can control the messages I send about food, and I do. But I can't control what he does when he's not at home---nor should I; gaining independence and learning to make wise choices is a developmental necessity.

All that said, there comes a time when parental intervention is demanded. My early teen son has experienced a spurt in weight. I know that it will soon be followed by a growth spurt in height---and reassure him to make wise food choices and get lots of activity. For now, this will do the trick; I don't want to encourage loss, but if he achieves adult stature with a couple of pounds to lose, we can deal with it positively.

BUT, if he were to continue to gain, I would intervene as well as I could.

And if he approached the astronomical weights you see on shows on Discovery, then---well, I think that the intervention should be family-based. I watched one last week in which the mother infantalized her 800-pound teen. Weight was a tool by which she kept him dependent. Having lost another son to death, she could not bear losing her current son. Not the best strategy, since his weight seriously threatened his health. (Fortunately, she recognized this and sought therapy.)

When I see shows like that, I do tend to yell at the TV screen. When someone is immobilized by excess weight and wholly dependent on another person for meals, then HELLLS YEAH! You bet that caretaker has the obligation to provide healthy meals appropriate for weight loss. I don't think that arrest is likely the best approach, but if it's the only way to underscore the necessity of appropriately parenting a child at grave risk, then the message must be sent.

I suspect that a good deal of attempted intervention preceded the arrest. And I suspect that, legally, it won't go far. I would hope that educational opportunities would be made available to the mother and her child---at 14, s/he needs to learn how to make appropriate decisions, too.

I have thought about this a lot since my last post. Taking the child and putting him in foster care, arresting the mother. This is just screwing the boy up even more. I don't care if this is for good intentions. Instead they needed to bring the help into the home. (IMHO). Not break apart the home. It isn't like the mother is a criminal, drug addict etc....