Should Child Obesity Be Considered Child Abuse?

   In today's world, should a parent be held responsible if their child or children are obese? Well, let's first look at the parent's. Are they obese as well, do they look healthy? If not, then they probably feed their child or children the same food they eat themselves. Pediatricians today are seeing children 10 to 100 lbs. overweight. So how do we as a society feel about this? Do you thing that on the parents behalf this is criminal neglect?

It is not that hard to teach your child or children to eat healthy. Don't forget they follow us adults, and copy what they see at home. It is not that hard to keep junk food out of the home, and replace it with healthy alternatives.

It seems that all a child or children have to do is cry and they are given anything to appease them, because of poor parenting. Even worse older ones are given money to buy what ever they want, because the parents can't be bothered cooking. Some parents have very little concern, what their children eat out side the home. This makes the child or children more predisposed for obesity.

Now I know some children have medical conditions, for their obesity. However, on the parents part, it is still their responsibility to make sure, and to guide their child or children to eat the right foods. If a parent is feeding their obese child or children unhealthy food, then yes that parent should be held accountable in the event the child becomes ill due to their weight.

It is the responsibility of the parents or parent to know what magnitude obesity can do to their child or children. In this case it's just plain and simple it's bad parenting.

Federal law…defines child abuse and neglect as “any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker, which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm…or an act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm.” The seriousness of neglect is judged according to the magnitude or risk of harm and by its chronicity. Improper feeding practices, causing undernourishment and failure to thrive, have long been addressed through the child abuse and neglect framework.

Keeping your child or children have long terms effects on them. They develop emotional problems, are first to be bullied, and have higher risks for health problems. 

“Child neglect” is typically defined as failure of caregivers to seek or provide necessary medical care, thus placing the child at risk of serious harm. An argument for classifying childhood obesity as neglect could apply when the caretaker of an affected child fails to seek medical care, fails to provide recommended effective medical care, or fails to control their child’s behavior to a degree that places the child at risk of serious harm, including death. When possible medical neglect is reported, child protective services typically investigates the allegations, conducts a comprehensive family assessment of safety and risk, determines the family’s need for additional social and financial services, and if necessary, recommends additional interventions (“check-ins” to determine compliance with recommendations, home visits, removal of child from the home, etc.) to protect the child from harm. Among the many available interventions, removing the child from the home is the most severe. The threshold for doing so in cases of medical neglect is usually high, due to the need to balance the goal of protecting a child from medical harm with the risk of causing serious psychological harm by removing the child from the home.

In general, physicians should report medical neglect only when all three of the following conditions are present:

A high likelihood of serious and imminent harm;

A reasonable likelihood that an available intervention will result in effective treatment;

The absence of alternative options for addressing the problem.

These three criteria can serve as a framework for determining when a particular case might approach the threshold for reporting medical neglect.

If this cycle is not broken by the parent or parents, it will most likely be that the child or children, will parent the same way.