Is child obesity abuse?

Is child obesity abuse? That is the question that has been raised by many over the past few years.  As the issue plagues teachers, care providers and doctors as the rates of childhood obesity increase.

According to the American Obesity Association, obesity among children and teens is beginning to reach epidemic levels, as some 30% of children and teens are overweight and 15% are obese.   The frightening facts about child obesity is that it most often is not something that children ‘grow out of’, as those children who are overweight, with at least one overweight parent, are 80% more likely to be overweight as adults according to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

Childhood obesity affects children on a multitude of levels, both emotionally and physically.  Children who are obese are often plagued low self-esteem and a poor self-image, they are also at a greater risk for asthma, Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, sleep apnea, and bone and cartilage damage.  However while these risks are of grave concern in the overall welfare of the child, are they the result of abuse or neglect?   The thought of childhood obesity as a form of neglect and abuse has my mind boggled in many ways, one where is the line to be drawn?

Many children do go through chubby phases, many parents keep houses full of nothing but healthy foods but the kids sneak it anyway.  I have an overweight brother and he has been that way since he was a kid. In actuality he was underweight for the first few years and I remember when he was 9 months old we took the outfit off a stuff bear (boots included) to dress him up for Halloween. I helped raise him and I can guarantee that while we were not the organic family, we were average and he was monitored, but he grew chubby nonetheless. Now he is overweight and as a teen when it got more serious we tried to curb him but he would sneak the snacks in anyway, and often more if we got on him.  So did we abuse him? I read the stories and I see we could have easily been accused of abuse, but I know we didn’t abuse him and the fight to keep him slim wasn’t as clear cut, as in many cases.  See he has some learning and physical disabilities and some of the cases I have read about other children have also had disabilities, or parents with limited income, no health insurance…where do we start and stop calling it abuse?

Yet the parents’ share of responsibility in weight gain isn’t always easy to judge. “It’s unfair to blame solely the parents, when there’s a myriad of other factors influencing a child’s weight,” says Dr. Dana Rofey of the University of Pittsburgh, whose weight-management clinic is regularly called on during custody battles in which one divorced parent blames the other for making a child obese. She says contributing factors include not just genetic predisposition and socioeconomic status but also environmental factors, like whether children have access to parks and playgrounds. Rofey also sees children of all ages sneaking extra food behind their parents’ backs.

In South Carolina one mother found herself on charges of criminal neglect as her 14 year-old son hit a shocking 555 pounds (USA Today).  The case of obesity and abuse is not only an American issue, but taking global strides as seen in the case of a six year old boy who was removed from his parents care in the United Kingdom .  However one family in the UK had made headlines multiple times, most shockingly when they had their newborn taken only 28 hours after birth, three of their seven children had already been removed prior due to obesity abuse and neglect charges (Daily Mail).  The family from Scotland has come to media attention once again and the issue of obesity as abuse and neglect had reached headlines as Time has recently run a piece, Should Parents of Obese Kids Lose Custody?.

Several other cases in recent years — in California, New Mexico, Texas and New York, as well as Canada — have garnered attention because a child’s obesity resulted in loss of custody. “It’s happening more than the public is aware of, but because these cases are usually kept quiet [as a result of child-privacy laws], we have no record,” says Dr. Matt Capehorn, who sits on the board of the U.K.’s National Obesity Forum.

The hype over obesity has me once again thinking back to my childhood and the fact that children just seemed more social and active…and while there was always some chubby or overweight kids, everyone seemed more active and healthy. One seemed to have less toys and more friends waiting impatiently outside to play games conjured up by their little imaginations. There were days spent in endless search for frogs, digging up worms, catching lightning bugs, riding my bikes all day long until forced inside by restless parents trying to serve a hot meal.  In a day and age where obesity in children is of grave concern, lets put the toys away a bit more and encourage our children to get outside and play, join a sports team, ride their bike, and just have some good clean old fashioned fun.

Obviously this is not a simple solution as we as a society are increasing in size and if parents do not eat healthy and live healthy lifestyles, nor if they do not have access to resources in which to do so the fight is more difficult.  My last thought is that one starting point is to go back to recess and PE, as it seems to have fallen out of most of our schools!

The true key to preventing childhood obesity is a balanced and healthy diet and exercise, and it seems that the latter is what is most often missed the most. Children today spend less time exercising, simply playing outside, than any other generation. Time outside has been quickly replaced by TV’s, gaming systems, and computers, all of which leave children sitting idle and at more risk for obesity.   It all brings me back to a piece I did last year, Are children playing enough?, I think the answer is in the statistics!