Ohio puts 200-pound third-grader in foster care

[Melanie]

This incident rubs me wrong in all kinds of ways. Knowing that so many children go to bed hungry, and wake up hungry is haunting. Yet the government isn't pulling children from homes to make sure they are fed are they? Instead they focus on the child who appears to have too much to eat.

We live in a very diverse multi-cultural neighborhood. My son goes to school with quite a few kids who's only decent meal for the day is the state subsidized lunch they receive at school. They often have no breakfast, and little dinner.

My son, too, is on the lunch program. I do make sure he gets breakfast, dinner, and snacks every day. But, yah, we don't have food overflowing from our cupboards and I have to get quite creative.

With that said - maybe it's best to address children and food issues as a whole and not single out just those who stand out.

Interesting article for those who care to read it re: how many American kids go hungry each and every day.

As many as 17 million children nationwide are struggling with what is known as food insecurity. To put it another way, one in four children in the country is living without consistent access to enough nutritious food to live a healthy life, according to the study, "Map the Meal Child Food Insecurity 2011."

http://abcnews.go.com/US/hunger_at_home/hunger-home-american-children-malnourished/story?id=14367230

MOO

Mel

 

[Dogface]

I support this 1000% and I know many will disagree with me, but raising a SEVERELY overweight child, and an 8y/o at 200lbs is SEVERELY overweight, is unacceptable. Just as a severely underweight child is unacceptable. From my understanding, CPS said it was a result of the mothers inability to reduce his weight...so I do hope they gave her a time period and said his weight needed to be decreased before just springing into action and taking him away. I believe every child removal needs to be thoroughly reviewed first, of course. However, the mothers own lawyer even admitted he was at risk for weight related diseases, just that he was not old enough for it to be a problem yet....what a joke.

Can you imagine the emotional trauma this little boy is going through ?

I cannot even imagine the emotional trauma he suffered at the hands of his peers. Its even proven those who are overweight suffer as adults in many aspects as well, down to earning less money for doing the same job as others. Also, overweight individuals and their various disorders drive up the cost of healthcare for everyone. I, for one, do not appreciate this.

I am VERY sensitive to this subject, as I have two overweight parents(Dad/Stepmom) and an overweight sister. We literally have had family feuds over how they allow my sister to eat. She out eats me at every meal. She does not follow serving sizes. She snacks constantly. She eats late at night, right before meals, always has dessert, etc. Parents inability to tell their kids no in the kitchen is a massive problem IMO, I see it firsthand. If I wanted a snack, I had to ask (my mom was much more strict than my dad/stepmom). If I didn't want the snack offered, usually carrots/apples/celery, I didn't get to eat. I obviously wasn't that hungry if I couldn't eat what I was offered. Now I have seen my sister teased, dateless and depressed over her weight. I do not wish this on any child, and I strongly feel that parents need to take responsibility in their role in this, and stop blaming schools for not having recess or enough vegetables at lunch. That just makes me want to roll my eyes into the back of my head considering a large amount of parents do not even serve vegetables with most meals in their homes.

Parents need to get back to controlling what their kids eat, and stop making excuses for themselves. Sure, you cannot choose what your kid eats at lunch, if you let them buy their food their. Don't have time to pack lunches? Don't send your kid with just money, put it on the school lunch card, that cannot be used in vending, and monitor their spending. Pack their lunch, don't send them with money for vending machines, do not buy sodas at your home(when I was a kid, soda came with the rarity of eating out), monitor your pantry/fridge and know when something has been eaten. Enroll your child in a sport. Follow serving sizes. And for pete's sake, they need to get their OWN butts off the couch and go play outside with them too! Oh and CUT the freaking tv's/computers off.

Unless you suffer from a disorder, its a simple concept - you must burn more than you consume to lose weight, or burn what you consume to maintain a weight.

Of course, all JMHO, and I hope no one takes offense to anything I have said.

 

[Melanie]

Dogface,

The school district my son attends requires that you put money on a school card as the servers no longer accept cash. A huge problem the school was having (years ago) were parents would send kids off to school with money and they'd pocket it and buy candy (yah, I did that as a kid too)

It's a good and effective change here, and ensures that the children eat. Oh, and they have all purchases on line now so I can see what my son eats everyday (right down to the last french fry). It's wonderful!

So yah, I've noticed here that things have changed quite a bit since I was a kid. Now if the school would only put a few more healthy meals on their menu!

MOO

Mel

 

[oh_gal]

My now (2 yr old) was born big.....
And he is big to this day....over 50 lbs.....he gets plenty of exercise and loves fruits and veggies.....We DO feed him healthy. I have never seen a child his age who liked spinach, cauliflower, broccolli, collards, etcccccc......... but he does!!!!
So, sorry if I don't like your post.

Your child may be 50 lbs, but maybe some of that is baby fat that will fall off the more mobile he becomes.

I'm not a doctor, nurse, or nutritionist...but it seems unlikely to me that a child who eats plenty of fruits and vegetables, whose parents are feeding him healthy, and who gets plenty of exercise will become morbidly obese.

Your 50 pound child is probably packing a lot of muscle!

 

[Dogface]

Dogface,

The school district my son attends requires that you put money on a school card as the servers no longer accept cash. A huge problem the school was having (years ago) were parents would send kids off to school with money and they'd pocket it and buy candy (yah, I did that as a kid too)

It's a good and effective change here, and ensures that the children eat. Oh, and they have all purchases on line now so I can see what my son eats everyday (right down to the last french fry). It's wonderful!

So yah, I've noticed here that things have changed quite a bit since I was a kid. Now if the school would only put a few more healthy meals on their menu!

MOO

Mel

I am glad to hear of those helpful changes I know if I had been sent to school with cash, it would have been a Dr. Pepper, Gardettos and Rolos for me! :innocent: In fact, when I did start making food choices on my own when I moved out to college I turned the freshman 15 into the freshman 40 - thankfully I am back to my normal weight, but had to work it off in a gym. And it taught me a valuable lesson about eating what you want, when you want.

 

[oh_gal]

I wonder what this child's daily diet consists of? I'm asking because the more I try to save money, clip coupons and peruse the grocery story flyers, the more I've come to realize that it is expensive to eat healthy!! Fresh fruits and vegetables -- even frozen -- are expensive! The leaner cuts of meat are more expensive!!

But you know what's consistently on sale, for dirt cheap? Processed foods. TV dinners. Potato chips. Pop. Pop-tarts.

It might be, that in trying to make ends meet, this family is eating the only foods they feel they can afford and still pay the bills. Unfortunately, those same food items are filled with fat, salt, trans fats, hydrogenated oils, and God only knows what else. And they make you fat.

It's either that, or the poor kid has a medical issue going on.

 

[Nefriahaia]

I wonder if he has Prader-Willi Syndrome???:waitasec:

 

[Steely Dan]

Yes, parents should be free to raise behemoths who'll drop dead before they're 30. I think not.

I don't think it's that easy. There are a lot of variables that can enter into this. How is a parent going monitor their child 24/7? There can also be medical reasons for this too. I think taking the child away can do more damage than keeping the child with the parent.

Allowing a 8 year old child to reach 200 pounds IS abusive. Yes, typically the state makes a poor parent and removing a child should always be the last resort. I'm quite sure CPS didn't swoop down and snatch this child with no warning. If this boys parents are unwilling or able to help him, then I hope they found great foster parents that can.

IMO This case is no different than removing malnourished children from their parents and no one seems to take issue with that.

I agree with you and wfgodot to a certain extent, but where is the line drawn? If a parent doesn't make the kid bathe everyday is that abuse?

Here's another article on this; http://news.yahoo.com/obese-third-grader-taken-mom-placed-foster-care-201731761.html

...But one family who has been in the same position as the Ohio family told ABC News they disagreed with the practice when “Good Morning America” spoke with them in January.

“Literally, it was two months of hell. It seemed like the longest two months of my life,” mother Adela Martinez said.

Her daughter, 3-year-old Anamarie Regino, weighing 90 pounds, was taken from her parents and placed into foster care a decade ago.

Anamarie didn’t improve at all in foster care, and she was returned to her parents. The young girl was later diagnosed with a genetic predisposition.

“They say it’s for the well-being of the child, but it did more damage than any money or therapy could ever to do to fix it,” Martinez said.

Anamarie Regino, who is now a teenager, agreed....



I think this is a very complex issue and I support keeping the child with their parents as much as possible. JMO

 

[Kimberlyd125]

Your child may be 50 lbs, but maybe some of that is baby fat that will fall off the more mobile he becomes.

I'm not a doctor, nurse, or nutritionist...but it seems unlikely to me that a child who eats plenty of fruits and vegetables, whose parents are feeding him healthy, and who gets plenty of exercise will become morbidly obese.

Your 50 pound child is probably packing a lot of muscle!

You are right.

My child falls in the obese category even though she IS NOT.

Don't get me wrong, she's a big girl. A big STRONG athlete.
She has more muscle in her biceps than I have in my whole body.

She could stand to lose a few pounds around her waste, but she is far from obese.

Taking this child from the home is a gross misuse of power IMO.

 

[Melanie]

I wonder what this child's daily diet consists of? I'm asking because the more I try to save money, clip coupons and peruse the grocery story flyers, the more I've come to realize that it is expensive to eat healthy!! Fresh fruits and vegetables -- even frozen -- are expensive! The leaner cuts of meat are more expensive!!

But you know what's consistently on sale, for dirt cheap? Processed foods. TV dinners. Potato chips. Pop. Pop-tarts.

It might be, that in trying to make ends meet, this family is eating the only foods they feel they can afford and still pay the bills. Unfortunately, those same food items are filled with fat, salt, trans fats, hydrogenated oils, and God only knows what else. And they make you fat.

It's either that, or the poor kid has a medical issue going on.

I'm not sure what area this child lives, but where I live I can find healthy foods dirt cheap. Just today I bought ground beef for 1.88 a pound, yams for 48 cents a pound, 5 pounds of apples for 4.99, and pears for .99 a pound.

I bet you're a coupon shopper like me who works from the outside in. I hit the fruits/veggies first, then meats, then dairy, then breads, then the inside aisles. Dang, I hate the inside aisles. But I'd rather pay 6.00 for 2 quaker instant oatmeals than 2 boxes of pop tarts!

I guess it's all about taking the time to find out what's on sale and using your coupons accordingly. I absolutely understand the folks that don't have the time to do this.

I also notice how the grocers put the sale items on each end of the aisles. This is where you'll find the sugary cereals, the chips, the candy and all those "easy to sell" items. It's the healthy items you have to look for. Today I had to hunt for my pistachios buy 1/get 1 free. It's a full time job I tell ya.

MOO

Mel

 

[oh_gal]

I'm not sure what area this child lives, but where I live I can find healthy foods dirt cheap. Just today I bought ground beef for 1.88 a pound, yams for 48 cents a pound, 5 pounds of apples for 4.99, and pears for .99 a pound.

I bet you're a coupon shopper like me who works from the outside in. I hit the fruits/veggies first, then meats, then dairy, then breads, then the inside aisles. Dang, I hate the inside aisles. But I'd rather pay 6.00 for 2 quaker instant oatmeals than 2 boxes of pop tarts!

I guess it's all about taking the time to find out what's on sale and using your coupons accordingly. I absolutely understand the folks that don't have the time to do this.

I also notice how the grocers put the sale items on each end of the aisles. This is where you'll find the sugary cereals, the chips, the candy and all those "easy to sell" items. It's the healthy items you have to look for. Today I had to hunt for my pistachios buy 1/get 1 free. It's a full time job I tell ya.

MOO

Mel

I'm about 30 miles away from this family, so they're pretty much subject to the same foods and pricing that I am. And I agree with you -- I spend hours, literally hours, planning menus, going through coupons, and scanning the flyers to find the best food, at the best prices. But if I bought what I really wanted to (organic fruits and vegetables and vegetarian patties, etc.).....I just can't afford it. So, I'm buying probably 70% healthy (although not organic) and 30% cheaper (and processed) foods to fill in the gaps.

 

[OneLostGrl]

I wonder if he has Prader-Willi Syndrome???:waitasec:

Me too! Have we seen a pic of the child?

 

[not_my_kids]

Sadly, this isn't new. The only thing that is different is that CPS has learned that they can snatch the kids that are overweight, as well as the ones that are underweight. For years and years and years, CPS has been snatching kids from their parents because they have been diagnosed with "failure to thrive". So, now they have figured out how to pad the coffers with money from overweight children, as well.

Absolutely disgusting. I can almost guarantee that CPS did not give this family an appropriate amount of time to reduce this child's weight, or that the reporting party was a doctor that wanted to do a procedure that the parents did not agree with or felt was dangerous. But these are the little details that they won't tell us. Because we are supposed to trust an agency that has NEVER been honest with the people it "serves". Amazing, isn't it, how we have been granted a look into the daily lives and operating procedures of every government agency from the DEA to the FBI to the federal school lunch program, but CPS has never opened it's doors to the public?

Because then, people might raise even more questions, and then they are sunk. We keep accepting this level of interference and control as if it is justified, and before you know it, the state will be raising all children, and there will be no more parents, only breeders of the state's little cash cows.

MOO and assorted other barnyard noises.

 

[oh_gal]

Just heard on local news that the child has a life-threatening form of sleep apnea, and that dr's and CPS have been working with the family for 1 1/2 years to reduce his weight. They also reported that this is a temporary separation, and that CPS intends to reunite the child with his parents.

http://www.fox8.com/news/wjw-obese-child-removed-from-mom-family-services-ev-txt,0,3357701.story

 

[brighidin]

This is all kinds of wrong. There are many other solutions that could be explored before removing the child from the family. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that this family is from a lower socio-economic group. Good fresh food is expensive, prohibitively so, sometimes. So are gym memberships and team sports. It is hard for non-middle class families to afford these things. Doctors are not infallible and although they have positioned themselves as experts in a number of areas, including child-rearing and nutrition, I don't think they are.

Obesity has been constructed as the current evil in society, but to place all the blame on parents is not fair; although, historically, blaming parents, mothers in particular, for issues related to structural inequalities is nothing new.

It's too bad that the mother was unable to reduce the child's weight, but I wish they had not taken that child away.

Looking at this from a different lens: why haven't the doctors and experts been able to reduce his weight, if they've been working with the family for 1.5 years. Why punish the mother? Shouldn't a phalanx of experts have been able to produce some quantifiable results?

 

[ThoughtFox]

I was an overweight kid myself in a family full of normal-sized people and so was my husband. My dear sister will still point out that my feet were always bigger than hers - as if I could have changed that! It wasn't until I had a daughter with the same body type (and shoe size) that I realized the futility of comparing sizes.

My two sons are thin now as young men, but at various ages and stages looked like butterballs. My husband was a roly-poly kid, but after he got taller he was thin also, and still is when he takes the time to walk every day.

I worry about this child blaming himself or feeling punished for his weight. I'm sure there are some family issues, but truly I ate the exact same things my skinny brothers did but gained more weight.

I really see it as a metabolism problem, and maybe a boredom issue. Was this child running around outside? I slimmed up as a kid after I started playing basketball and riding bikes. And in high school I would play tennis and run, and that really helped me so much. Some children aren't allowed outside anymore, and I don't know what their parents are thinking.

ETA: And I have to add, I grew up with children much bigger than myself just from genetics alone - and the whole family was larger than normal. I knew one family that used to joke about "giantism," but in this case it really isn't funny. However, I really wonder why they would take a child from his family over a weight issue. It seems cruel to me.

 

[Ada]

I knew a child, through my job, who was 11 years old, 5'1", and, weighed over 350 lbs. She had heart problems related to her weight. She also had ADHD but could not take meds to control her ADHD because of her heart problems. So, in addition to being morbidly obese and having related heart problems, she was also failing in school due to her untreated ADHD.

CPS was involved because they were contacted by the child's doctor who let them know that the mother was making no effort to help the child and that her condition was life threatening.

eta: metabolic disorders had been ruled out with this child.

 

[tlcya]

Just heard on local news that the child has a life-threatening form of sleep apnea, and that dr's and CPS have been working with the family for 1 1/2 years to reduce his weight. They also reported that this is a temporary separation, and that CPS intends to reunite the child with his parents.

http://www.fox8.com/news/wjw-obese-child-removed-from-mom-family-services-ev-txt,0,3357701.story

oh my goodness. I am still unsure what I think on this. Again, I can't help but think that with all the children who are being physically abused, beaten, raped, who are already slipping through the very large cracks in the CPS system, do we really need them expanding their idea of abuse? They can't even protect the kids who already fell within their previous parameters.

On the other hand, if they and medical professionals have been involved for a year and a half, perhaps they think the parents are not being forthcoming about the child's true dietary intake. I am thinking based off the linked report that they are removing the child to see if over the course of the next few weeks the weight shows any drop when in a foster setting and his calories being counted by someone other than mom.

It does sound as if this child has some actual health related concerns, and not just ones that may affect in the future but ones that are affecting life right now.

IDK. On the fence over here.

 

[oh_gal]

This is all kinds of wrong. There are many other solutions that could be explored before removing the child from the family. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that this family is from a lower socio-economic group. Good fresh food is expensive, prohibitively so, sometimes. So are gym memberships and team sports. It is hard for non-middle class families to afford these things. Doctors are not infallible and although they have positioned themselves as experts in a number of areas, including child-rearing and nutrition, I don't think they are.

Obesity has been constructed as the current evil in society, but to place all the blame on parents is not fair; although, historically, blaming parents, mothers in particular, for issues related to structural inequalities is nothing new.

It's too bad that the mother was unable to reduce the child's weight, but I wish they had not taken that child away.

Looking at this from a different lens: why haven't the doctors and experts been able to reduce his weight, if they've been working with the family for 1.5 years. Why punish the mother? Shouldn't a phalanx of experts have been able to produce some quantifiable results?

Also going out on a limb here...

If the child has no metabolic reason for his weight gain, then there is no medication that will help him (short of diet pills or surgery). What that leaves, then, is behavior modification in terms of what he is eating, and the amount of exercise he is getting. Doctors can only do so much. They can tell his mom all the right things to do, but if she's not listening, or he's not listening....what more can they do?

They've had 1 1/2 years to show some improvement. That seems like a pretty generous time frame to me. Perhaps the reason for taking him away (temporarily) is to put him in an environment where his food can be more closely monitored and prepared, and he is able to get some physical activity.

Only guessing here, and only guessing based on what has been reported. We haven't heard that he has some metabolic disorder, so it seems, at this point, anyway, that it all comes down to food choices and activity.

Hopefully he will be back with his family soon, though. I'm sure he misses them, and they, him.

 

[Linda7NJ]

I once had a severely overweight obese foster child. (She wasn't removed from her home for being overweight) In a little less than two years, she was a normal weight, looked fantastic and physically fit. I don't buy junk food. It's very rarely in my home. I grow my own veggies and I can them. I keep a large bowl of fresh fruit to grab from anytime. I also never allowed excessive tv watching or video game playing.

IMO Removing the crap food from the house all together is what it takes.