|
|
2014/09: Should the parents of obese children be charged with neglect?
Introduction to the media issue
Video clip at right:A 2013 Sunrise on Seven segment in which two fitness trainers criticise parents for allowing their children to become obese. If you cannot see this clip, it will be because video is blocked by your network. To view the clip, access from home or from a public library, or from another network which allows viewing of video clips.
What they said...
'State intervention may serve the best interests of many children with life-threatening obesity, comprising the only realistic way to control harmful behaviours'
Harvard paediatrics professor David Ludwig and Lindsey Murtagh, a Harvard public-health researcher
'[B]laming a mother for making her child fat does not begin to acknowledge the multiple, oppressive forces that restrict the choices a parent can make'
Darren Powell, a doctoral candidate in Health and Physical Education at Charles Sturt University
The issue at a glance
On June 7, 2014, it was reported that two British parents had been arrested over the extreme obesity of their 11-year-old son. The news created a significant response on Australia and around the world, especially on parenting forums.
2012 news reports in Victoria noted that obesity had been a significant factor in influencing child protection authorities to remove children from two different families. While in 2009 an Australian academic study recommended that doctors and other clinicians working with children should view certain types of childhood obesity as child neglect and report the parents to childcare authorities.
These actions and positions have been rejected by others as simplistic, misplaced and likely in themselves to cause harm.