Originally published July 29 2008
Overfeeding Your Child May be Considered a Crime
by David Gutierrez, staff writer
(NaturalNews) Obesity was a factor in up to two dozen child protection cases in the United Kingdom in 2007, according to an investigation conducted by the BBC.
The BBC cites this as only part of a growing trend toward the stigmatization of the overweight and obese.
"When we first started talking about obesity as a problem, it was very hard to be heard," said Dr Ian Campbell of the nonprofit Weight Concern. "Now the pendulum has swung too far the other way -- we hear nothing but. And the net result is that the kind of moralizing the obese and overweight have always suffered has somehow become institutionalized."
On the one hand, some health professionals have said that overfeeding children is tantamount to child abuse. Overweight children are more likely to develop childhood diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and other problems that more typically develop later in age. They are also more likely to grow into obese adults, and are thus at a higher risk of adult heart disease, diabetes, various cancers and other health problems that lead to earlier death.
These were among the reasons that led British child protection officials to threaten to take an obese boy away from his mother in early 2007. He was eventually allowed to remain.
As part of the same trend, at least eight National Health Service trusts in the United Kingdom have introduced bans or restrictions on providing non-urgent surgery to those who are overweight. The trusts argue that patients with a lower body weight recover better and are more likely to have successful operations. But critics accuse the health industry of simply using the overweight as a convenient way to cut costs.
"This is really about resources," said Colin Waine, chair of the National Obesity Forum. "You can't argue that denying a hip-and-knee operation to an obese person is in their interests, as it may well be the inability to walk about and exercise which is making their problems worse."
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