@engineer,
first of all, second hand smoke is not that dangerous. Removing the danger of breaking a leg while riding a bike is easy.. remove the bike. etc..etc..
BUT
what this child is going through is life threatening. There are health issues that are happening right NOW because of his weight. Sleep apnea can be deadly since it stops a person from breathing. The pressure on their throat is too much from the excess fat around the neck to allow free airflow. With the natural drying of the throat during sleep, that pressure can cause the airway to , in a sense ..stick together causing breathing to be even MORE of an issue. Sleep apnea due to weight is no laughing matter.
Weight is something you
can control. ( unless there is a major disease of some kind... even those are so few and far between its almost irrelevant ) A childs diet is the sole responsibility of the parent and if the parent is choosing a diet that is causing obesity then YES, someone needs to step in.
Children are not naturally that fat. And when your child is so fat they can not breathe on their own.... the parent should ACT. And that action needs to include the strict enforcement of a diet.
Too many parents just want to give their kids what they like and enjoy for foods. Well, let me rephrase that.. ALL parents want to give their kids what they enjoy, and that is not a bad thing. Children grow up learning to enjoy the foods they are introduced to though.
Dont want your toddler to gorge on doritos? Dont give them to your child... they will never know, they wont want them...etc.etc.
There is a point when public schools come in and the diet control by parents begins to disappear. Fair enough. Its inevitable !
But if the only junk food a child eats is the school lunch, unless there is a very specific food allergy,thyroid problem, or genetic issue a child would NOT weigh 200lbs on that alone.
Granted... there are a ton of chemicals in our foods that cause the body to store more than a necessary amount of fat because the body does not know how to process these chemicals. There are also chemicals in almost EVERY piece of packaged food you can find that literally stop insulin production in the body for example ( HFCS is one of them).. so it is a bit of an uphill swim for parents in this country to make sure they stay away from those chemicals, and school lunch is full of that crap.. but again, that is NOT enough to cause a 200lb body on such a small person with a naturally high metabolism .
Could you label a large amount of children obese? that is questionable. To be obese you have to have enough fat to adversely affect your physical health. It isnt a magic number..size.. or weight. To be technically OBESE and be that young, you would have to be, well...super fat. You can not label most children obese in this country as the article says. A child with a pudgy belly is not obese. An 8 year old who weighs 200lbs is.
But... an 8 year old weighing 200 lbs is not even
natural. That is a HUGE problem and a HUGE issue and one that no parent should ever ignore, deem cute, or think nothing of. 200lbs is what adults weigh. And if the parent here has not really done too much to change the diet of the child, and he is still gaining weight.. YES. he should be removed . Removed with the parents losing all custody? ..... thats questionable.. but he could be moved to a camp, rehab center..etc that would get his weight down. Thats always a possibility..