Harvard University Professor Dr. David Ludwig is under attack for his public call this week for some obese children to be taken from their parents to protect their health. Ludwig stated that “[i]n severe instances of childhood obesity, removal from the home may be justifiable, from a legal standpoint, because of imminent health risks and the parents’ chronic failure to address medical problems.” That legal standpoint may need a bit more work.
Ludwig is an obesity expert at Children’s Hospital Boston and associate professor at the Harvard School of Public Health. His comments came in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
First, in defense of Ludwig, he prefaced his statement by saying that such intervention would only be in severe cases. It is indeed possible for a child to be removed in a severe case where the child is in imminent risk of seriously injury or death due to either acts or omissions by the parents.
However, the statement rightfully raised concerns. There is growing evidence of genetic predispositions for obesity in some people. The parents may not be at fault in the continuing condition. Moreover, removing the child from the home will only increase stress for the child.
Parental rights are protected by the Constitution and, while child services are given a fair degree of discretion in the removal of children from homes to protect them, those decisions are subject to a full legal process. Most such removals are likely to fail under current legal standards absent a showing of imminent harm and a failure of the parents to follow medical advice. As a comparison, courts often express reluctance to order cancer treatments or medical interventions for a child when parents claim religious objections to treatment. The child is often at immediate risk when a court issues an order of removal or arrest.
The problem is that obesity is very common (unfortunately) among children today and they are all at some level of risk. An estimated 12.5 million children and teens (17% of that population) are obese.
Ludwig would need a case where the child is in immediate risk of heart failure of some of medical emergency. Such a status usually required hospitalization, not foster care. Moreover, experts in the article below question whether care would improve in foster care.
This was the case of 3-year-old Anamarie Regino who weighed 90 pounds and was removed from the home for two months. She did not show any improvement in foster care. She is now 14 years old and was raised by her parents.
Source: ABC News
Roco:
you dont know what you are talking about, government is much better at making people comply. The stats must be wrong, you are quoting some libertarian crap put out by the Mises Institute or your favorite religious person Ayn Rand.
Prove your statement or STFU with all this government is bad crap. I think you are lying.
Ssshhhh, don’t tell TonyC, his head might explode.
“McDonald’s, Burger King and Costco, for instance, are far more rigorous in checking for bacteria and dangerous pathogens. They test the ground beef they buy five to 10 times more often than the USDA tests beef made for schools during a typical production day.”
oF course they do, its called making sure your stock price doesnt tank.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwMbJ68IbAM&feature=related
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwMbJ68IbAM&w=425&h=349%5D
http://www.heartmdinstitute.com/health-concerns/diabetes-obesity/study-highlights-obesity-depression-nexus
Empty calorie meals?? You wish the states were serving your kids empty calorie meals instead of what they are actually serving.
Change the economic dynamic in this country to reflect a semblance of reasonableness and I guarantee that many of these ‘social’ problems will evaporate. Period.
I want ever’ bald man with a comb-over or thin tuffits of hair sprouts on top removed from hisn’ home and put in a bald clinic under armed guard 24/7 until hisn’ hair returns. I do not care that balding is largely hereditary and he caint hep it–he shouldn’t a’ been bornt then.
Harvard smarvard…
Now I know how Obama got them good Harvard Law school marks of hisn’…
Being overweight is very different from being a smoker and a drinker. The body does not need cigarettes or alcohol; but, it does need food. Thus, a person cannot get totally away from food. Our processed foods and the food companies are the biggest problems; and, I don’t know what the solution is for these problems. However, I think America needs to rethink it’s obsession with thinness. Our bodies are biologically and genetically programmed to be a certain weight. What is a good weight for one person is not necessarily a good weight for another person. Learning to accept ourselves for what we are, which includes body type, is probably the hardest thing Americans can do because of our culture of worshipping the thin body. I learned to accept my less than perfect body and set a goal of just not gaining more weight even though at the time, I probably would have been judged overweight. But, I have succeeded with this goal pretty much. And, I never gave up pizza. All diets are boring and difficult because most of them make you hungry. Going hungry is not good. That is what causes binges after dieting–or in the middle of dieting. Americans eat too fast, which doesn’t give your body an opportunity to tell you it is full. The average American meal takes 6 minutes. It takes your body 20 minutes for your body to digest the first bite of your meal. Americans just need to relax and enjoy.
Before the states start removing kids from their family for obesity maybe they should address the empty calorie meals that the states feed children every day, sometimes twice a day. Did anybody else watch seasons 1 and 2 of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution? If the American school breakfast/lunch program is half as bad as that TV series painted it to be then the state is a big part of the problem.
Having worked in Child Welfare I could see some aspects of neglect such as this calling for removal, but Elaine’s comment wins me over. Having worked with and in foster care, in most localities the solution is worse than the problem, except in the most life threatening cases. If this country was really interested in Child Welfare they would reform the systems that provide alternates to parental care. To find out about foster care read any of Andrew Vacch’s excellent Burke novels.
Damn liberal … and if he’s not, then … damn conservative
I liked Dredd’s comment about fat cats
The Bastard Should be removed from practicing….Sounds familiar…oh Yes, Bastille Day is here….
There are already provisions in the laws of most states that will permit intervention in the event a child’s health is placed in serious jeopardy through the actions or inactions of parents. Presumably those laws would be available in a situation in which morbid obesity is creating an immediate and serious risk to a child and the parents refuse to acknowledge the risk or arrange for treatment. But placing such a child in the temporary care of foster parents would not be indicated unless there were evidence of neglect constituting abuse. And even in that case, the goal would be reunification.
I understand Dr. Ludwig’s concern, but it was not particularly well expressed. Of course, we will now all be treated to Fox News pundits railing about government assumption of parenting obligations and Michele Bachmann is liable to toss in a reference to those famous youth “reeducation camps” being set up by the Obama administration.
The parents and the children need treatment for their eating disorders not foster care. Some of these cases are genetic.
If you’re going to suggest that in severe cases of obesity a child should be removed from his/her own home, you should have a program in place to treat such children. IMO, placing such children in a foster home doesn’t sound like the best alternative.
I say take the fat cats first. Leave them kids alone.
I had a case in family court 15 or 16 years ago, in which I represented the mother of the child for whom the action was taken. As I recall, the action was for medical neglect.
The child was suffering from congenital problems with her ankles for which a doctor hired by the state recommended breaking the ankles and putting the child in casts so that the bones could heal in a way that should alleviate the problem. To anyone who saw the way she walked, they would have said the child was “pigeon-toed.”
The mother was aghast that the cure recommended sounded much more horrific than the problem, and whether I had represented her or not, I had to agree. The attorney for the state (always a party in such actions) was an old friend of mine from law school, but was adamant that since a doctor prescribed the breaking of bones and such, it had to be done that way.
Fortunately the social worker assigned to the case was blessed with a carload of common sense, and explained to me that two of her children had been diagnosed with the identical problem, and it had been remedied by the simple wearing of orthopedic shoes for about a year.
The common sense of the social worker won out and sure enough, orthopedic shoes solved the problem. Obesity is clearly a different situation. But we must remember that there was a movement at the end of the 19th century where certain beneficent States were going to remove children from families who didn’t rise to a perceived norm of functionality, and raise the children itself. While not conceived as an act of cruelty, the effect of the program was to destroy many families completely.
I don’t doubt the Harvard professor’s sincere conviction that something must be done, and if, in most states, some sort of nutritional abuse or neglect can be proven, there are legal and medical procedures for addressing the problem. But spare me the vision of schoolteachers and child care workers ranging about amongst their charges, body-fat calipers in hand, and their cellphones with a speed-dial button set to the Department of Social Welfare.
How dare he even consider any alternatives to the present course! Who knows where thinking and discussion might lead?
Please people, never ever ever suggest any solution that might be in the least controversial or potentially upsetting. Particularly when you know the media does not do nuance and will gloss over any subtlety you might have in mind. There is no room in this modern world for open debate of ideas – god, bad or indifferent.
“That legal standpoint may need a bit more work”
What does this mean? Children are not ‘possessions’. The parents are their guardians and I suspect that the Convention On The Rights Of The Child has something to say on the issue (signed but not ratified by the US).