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
Diet Soda Linked To Weight Gain
Huffington Post
Amanda Chan
6/29/2011
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/29/diet-soda-weight-gain_n_886409.html
Excerpt:
Diet soda might not help you stay trim after all, new research suggests.
A study presented at a American Diabetes Association meeting this week shows that drinking diet soda is associated with a wider waist in humans. And a second study shows that aspartame — an artificial sweetener in diet soda — actually raises blood sugar in mice prone to diabetes.
“Data from this and other prospective studies suggest that the promotion of diet sodas and artificial sweeteners as healthy alternatives may be ill-advised,” study researcher Helen P. Hazuda, Ph.D., a professor and chief of clinical epidemiology at the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio’s School of Medicine, said in a statement. “They may be free of calories but not of consequences.”
kd is a shill for continuation of corporate foodstuffs that are draining the health out of our people.
She is probably addicted to this crap, I know many people who are.
And they get very defensive when you point out that the food they eat is really very bad for their health.
As I say, Darwins law will sort it out.
yea, Mike, it is astonishing to get off the plane after being in Europe and see people in the US airports driving their hoverounds because they are too fat to walk.
I see heavy people in the EU, dont get me wrong, but they look HEALTHY and they can walk!. They are eating real food, not food like substances.
We should just enact the EU standards for food and cosmetics. Our health care costs would go down 30%, no doubt in my mind.
Kderosa,
Most farmers get upset when you mess with their sheep….that is not bias….bias…is a person from Arkansas keeping his sister to himself….There is a difference…
I recommend reading Michael Pollan’s informative book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals.” It contains information about fast foods, agribusiness, corn’s conquest, the feeding of cows, CAFOs, the consumption of sugar and HFCS, obesity.
http://michaelpollan.com/books/the-omnivores-dilemma/
I am trying to argue with a clearly biased farmer. There is a difference.
@GeneH, it helps when you find research by researchers that release their data when requested by other researchers and go through the peer review process instead of releasing their research at conferences, especially when their results are not consistent with the work of other researchers.
kd, virtually ALL corn grown for commercial use is GM corn now. And it has been this way since 1998. The Princeton study is pretty recent.
Unless corn is marked NOT GMO, it IS GMO. All HFCS is made with GM corn. You are trying to argue with a farmer! You know nothing about it!
“We have to change the collusion between government and these giant corporate food processors. We need more local food, more small producers and we should ban HFCS.”
Shano,
Very good and true point.
“the entire way we think about food is off, and until we change that, America will have a weight issue.”
Gyges,
Another good and true point.
Now let’s put them together. The government with its USDA food chart and it lax regulation+giant chain restaurants & food processors/distributors+ Billion$ spent on mouth watering TV Ads psychologically tested to push peoples hunger buttons+a gullible uninformed public and people who are economically unable to buy good food=Obesity.
I have never in my long life seen so many people, so fat. Babe Ruth a known over-eater and guzzler never weighed more than 240 and looked fat with a pot belly. Today 300 pounds for a man and more than 250 pounds for a woman represent about 10% of the public. My father had a bit of a pot belly and was 6’2″ never weighed more than 220. How the hell do people get to weigh 300 pounds, pr 400 pounds? Perhaps by eating McDonald’s salads that could be 800 calories alone. Or meals at chains like Friday’s,
Big Bob’s, Denny’s, Applebee’s etc. that average more than 2,000 calories.
Now I’m no gourmet, nor am I a food snob, but the food in those places tastes like crap, besides being spectacularly fattening.
It’s all sold with the smoke and mirrors we call advertising. We need to stop blaming the victims of this and start looking at the perpetrators.
Will Genetically Modified Foods Make You Sick?
@Shano, if it were GM Corn it would have been plastered all over the study since it would have been the first study that ever showed anything deleterious with GM foods/
Unless a food package specifically states it is NOT GMO, you can bet is IS GMO. That is the way it is in the US.
And believe me, we fought hard to get this labeling. And will have to continue to fight to keep it.
kd, the corn it is produced from, the source, is GMO. Why do you continue to try and argue this point?
All commercial corn stock grown for HFCS is GM corn, modified to survive being sprayed with Roundup. I know, I used to do some no till corn planting before I knew better.
KD, Please phone home. Your Momma needs your.
The Princeton study did not indicate that the HFCS was genetically modified, which it typically isn’t.
No doubt, the way we think about food is pathological.
But, I fly all over and the US has the most overweight people of any nation I travel to. The Princeton study shows that HFCS increases weight MORE, calorie for calorie, than sugar.
the chemicals we allow in our food act as endocrine disruptors, in fact, we are now seeing 10 year old girls coming into menses, as well as having weight problems.
When you take a child to McDonalds, they are eating HFCS, CAFO meat that has genetically engineered steroids, and all sorts of unnatural chemicals for ‘flavor’ and ‘color’ .
HFCS will be found in the ketchup, in the bread bun, in the soda, in the pickles. The cooking oil for the fries is GMO, as are the potatoes. The soda is HFCS laced with chemicals.
I have never seen any person in Europe who was too fat to walk. I see them all the time here.
Shano,
How do you define “real nutritious food?” Hugely obese people existed before genetically engineered crops, high fructose corn syrup, and massed produced food products.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bright
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Lambert
The fact is, we (Americans) have lousy eating habits and a sedentary lifestyle. We could be eating free-range chicken and drinking soda made with another sugar, and there’d still be a huge obesity problem. I’ll grant you it might not be as big, but it’d still be there. You’re focusing on a small part of the problem without addressing the fundamental roots, the entire way we think about food is off, and until we change that, America will have a weight issue.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwMbJ68IbAM&feature=player_embedded
I ask again, does anyone think real nutritious food could result in producing a girl like this?
I travel all over Europe (which has banned CAFO meat, GMO grains and does not use HFCS at all) and I have never seen fat people there like the people you see in the United States.
I can eat anywhere in Europe. The food is wholesome and delicious. You have to really try to find processed food that is laden with chemicals in the EU. People would not stand for it. The opposite is true here.
We have to change the collusion between government and these giant corporate food processors. We need more local food, more small producers and we should ban HFCS.
Someone here has never watched Columbo.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201107120042 Michelle Obama ate a 1700 calorie meal at Shake Shack and conservatives ran with it.