A 200 pound ohio third-grader was recently placed in foster care after case workers decided his mother was not doing enough to control his weight.
Children and Family Services workers involved with the case determined that the 8-year-old, who already has difficulty breathing due to an unrelated medical condition, is at risk of developing serious medical conditions if he remains at his current weight.
According to The Associated Press, the boy’s mother plans on challenging the custody removal measure — but that might not be in the boy’s best interest. By allowing her son to become morbidly obese at such a young age, the boy’s mother has shown a disregard for his well-being. The boy should remain in foster care until he reaches a healthy weight.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website, obesity in American children 6 to 19 years old has risen by 13 percent in the past 30 years. The rate of obesity in children 6 to 11 in 2008 was 20 percent and in children 12 to 19, it was 18 percent.
Why are one in five children in the US obese?
One argument is school lunches don’t offer students healthy alternatives to pizza and french fries, thus forcing children to opt for foods void of nutritional value.
Another argument is the increased amount of fast food restaurants and the ease of eating at them as opposed to making a well-rounded meal. There is also less focus on physical education classes in schools, as they try to ramp up academics to get more funding.
All of these things probably contribute to childhood obesity, but the solution to this problem lies with the parents.
It is the responsibility of parents to make sure their children have healthy diets and are getting adequate amounts of exercise.
If a parent fails in this area to the point that their child becomes morbidly obese, the government should remove that child from that parent’s custody and help the child return to a healthy weight.
All of the causes you list here are structural, two of which lay directly at the feet of the public school system, but you jump to the quick solution of saying "the parents." Didn't you just say two ways that it was the schools? Didn't you just list the pervasiveness of fast food restaurants as a public health risk?
Well, I guess there is no excuse. Forget poverty! Forget that we force the kids to go to these schools and give them sub-quality food. Individualism!
Also: "Another argument is the increased amount of fast food restaurants and the ease of eating at them as opposed to making a well-rounded meal."
This is a badly written sentence. Edit to make the clause at the end a complete thought.