Could This Be Considered Child Abuse/Neglect?

RadishRose

RadishRose

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Connecticut, USA
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When my niece was a toddler, she was fed few sweet snacks. Actually preferred veggies as a snack. Was active, and still chubby. Her pediatrician said do not go "low cal" per se..but continue to offer healthy foods and just monitor her intake. That she would "grow into" her weight. She did. Is she rail thin? No, but of a good weight for her height Here she is at 15
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Not that I am aware, however, doctor’s here in Pennsylvania can go through the Department of Health and recommend that an associate contact the parents and suggest that a change in diets may be strongly recommended. This is only done in extreme cases and the child cannot have been diagnosed with an illness that may have caused serious weight gain.
 
I don't know how old those pictures are. No amount of counseling regarding diet change would have helped me related to the weight I started to gain at age 8. Which was caused by actual verbal, emotional, psychological and physical child abuse.

And yes it can be related to medications or conditions.
 
911 said:
Not that I am aware, however, doctor’s here in Pennsylvania can go through the Department of Health and recommend that an associate contact the parents and suggest that a change in diets may be strongly recommended. This is only done in extreme cases and the child cannot have been diagnosed with an illness that may have caused serious weight gain.
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So, here in PA there is no law about over feeding your kids to the point where they look like they swallowed bowling balls?
 
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Our school district offers breakfast and lunch 5 days a week, including during summer when the kids are out of school. Of course, they is a charge, unless your family is receiving state benefits. I like that idea. They have a nutritionist that makes up the menu and the parents get a copy of it monthly. For the most part, I found it very acceptable.
 
Could This Be Considered Child Abuse/Neglect?
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Perhaps theoretically, but poor eating habits in a family are frequently passed from parents to child. Not to mention the emotional eating aspect,which is a disorder that is equally contagious. Stressful work environments produce emotional eating victims...notice the size of police officers and nursing staff these days.
Fast food is such a large part of many people's lives, if you're in a fast food place you can see who's a 'frequent flyer' there, buy the doughy physique.
 
oldman said:
Our school district offers breakfast and lunch 5 days a week, including during summer when the kids are out of school. Of course, they is a charge, unless your family is receiving state benefits. I like that idea. They have a nutritionist that makes up the menu and the parents get a copy of it monthly. For the most part, I found it very acceptable.
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The county my Littles live in offers free breakfast AND lunch to ALL students.

There are a lot of very poor areas with many immigrants so free food is necessary. The thought behind including everyone is so that it does not call negative attention to the poorer kids who get their lunches. If EVERYONE gets a free lunch, then no one feels stigmatized.
 
and lots of babies go through super chubby stages - the baby in the photo may have been on steroids for some reason which can give that blown up face look, or may have had some other medical condition - or may just be at a chubby baby stage

Easy to jump in with judgemental assumptions.

My son was super chubby at around that age, I have a photo of him and he looks just like a little Buddha - but only food he was on at the time was breast milk.

Fortunately nobody reported me for child abuse.

PS; He is now 37 and perfectly normal weight

:unsure:
 
I never had to worry about childhood obesity…me mum was a terrible cook, you see! Perhaps this was why my Dad took us out to eat so often. He liked an occasional good meal, too. Perhaps Mum’s cooking was why my sister and I would sit around in the evening and polish off half a bag of pretzels, or some Entenman’s baked goods…

Mother would say that if starving children in Africa or China had food she prepared, they’d eat it eagerly. It was always on the tip of my tongue to say “good, send them this, then!“ 😸
 
oldman said:
So, here in PA there is no law about over feeding your kids to the point where they look like they swallowed bowling balls?
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Not that I am aware of. The doctor has to force any situations dealing with health to the Children’s Services Department. They pretty much deal with all children’s issues. Most of them are good at their job and from the legal side, they are easy to work with.

Parents who allow their children to get that big without any medical or psychological reasoning behind it should face some type of liability. I knew a woman that weighed about 500 pounds. She told us that she started overeating when she was 11 y/o. She was being molested by her stepfather and food became her way of retaliating and taking the molestations off her mind. The eating continued for many years.

I felt really bad for her with the stories she told us. How her mother stood by while knowing what was going on was a mystery to me. What kind of parent was she? They both were arrested after the girl, who was in high school and the brunt of a lot of bullying and name calling went to a teacher crying and she had a nervous breakdown right there in the school. Both parents were given time and the male got much more than mom, plus he was also fined.
 
it is ironic if a child is too thin or under nourished.... parents or guardians ARE held responsible .......
yet overweight or morbid obesity just happens....?
yes in both thin or thick there are health concerns but that is NOT the majority of those situations.
like Jim said parents buy the food not the child.

Imagine if real clear discussions with a child about making good choices in food and portions this a life long lesson.
Parents that listened or asked why a child is using food as comfort.
So many create a fat prison for themselves to avoid their molester.

Same with finances etc.
years of unlearning bad habits or struggle in trying to fix what could have been avoided.
 
911 said:
Not that I am aware of. The doctor has to force any situations dealing with health to the Children’s Services Department. They pretty much deal with all children’s issues. Most of them are good at their job and from the legal side, they are easy to work with.

Parents who allow their children to get that big without any medical or psychological reasoning behind it should face some type of liability. I knew a woman that weighed about 500 pounds. She told us that she started overeating when she was 11 y/o. She was being molested by her stepfather and food became her way of retaliating and taking the molestations off her mind. The eating continued for many years.

I felt really bad for her with the stories she told us. How her mother stood by while knowing what was going on was a mystery to me. What kind of parent was she? They both were arrested after the girl, who was in high school and the brunt of a lot of bullying and name calling went to a teacher crying and she had a nervous breakdown right there in the school. Both parents were given time and the male got much more than mom, plus he was also fined.
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Quite often the mother DOES know but decides to turn a blind eye to make it easier.
It’s not the chubby baby picture that upsets me; it’s the picture of him in his underwear standing on a towel eating ice cream that’s dripping down his entire body directly in front of the ice cream truck. What’s that all about. Now it’s online for everyone to see. I’m trying not to be judgmental but it’s hard for me not to wonder.
 
IMO, not always. I learned from the Oprah special on weight loss that some people are born with messed up metabolisms. They are just born that way and even if they are in sports as kids and eat a normal diet, their brain & hormones tell them they are hungry all the time.

So, sometimes, yeah, it can be the parents. But other times, it's just genetics.
 

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