From Slate: “Ohio officials are standing by their decision to remove an eight-year-old boy from his family's home last month because they considered his mother's inability to get the child's ballooning weight under control a form of medical neglect, the Associated Press reports … Tipping the scales at over 200 pounds, the third-grader more than triples the 60 pounds that government growth charts deem a healthy weight for boys his age. He is at risk for diseases like diabetes, heart disease, hypertension and high blood pressure.
“After monitoring the family for more than a year and a half, case workers last month deemed the boy to be in imminent danger.”
This incident is unfortunate (for the child and his family) and unsettling (because of the precedent this may set, especially when considering how eager progressives have always been to reach past parental authority and have more direct influence on other people's children).
The health of a child is not to be taken lightly (no pun intended) but, as I've asked before, where does this end? Will the government someday decide to intervene when kids weigh 200 lbs.? 180 lbs.? Will they monitor what food families eat? What if the "officials" get the kid in better shape and return him to his family and he gets fat again? It seems that the state's attempts to save such kids could cause collateral damage to families and to the concept of personal responsibility.
(Emphasis mine)
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