A Mother Faces Felony Charges for Her Son's Obesity

I'm going to step out on a limb here, and say that this prosecution is wrong on so many levels, I can barely wrap my mind around it.

Believe me, a teenager who eats his way up to 555 pounds hasn't been listening to his mother for a VERY long time. It wouldn't matter if she were a registered dietician giving him daily guidance (and keeping a lock on the pantry and refrigerator whenever he's unsupervised).........this is a different sort of eating problem than what the average overfed American is dealing with.

I"m sure I'm not the only one who's watched the documentaries on Discovery Health---teenagers and adults weighing 500, 600, even 900+ pounds, and some of these unfortunate folks consume as much as thirty to forty THOUSAND calories per day. That's more than most people eat in two weeks!

Here's an idea of how folks get to be that heavy. I myself have been a big eater all my life, but even at my worst, a Red Robin BBQ burger, fries, and a chocolate shake---at about 2000 calories for the entire meal---was the most food I could eat at one time. Now compare that with the superobese teenager who regularly consumes six cheeseburgers-with-everything, three large orders of fries, and two large shakes......all in ONE MEAL. I'm sorry, but I wasn't listening to anyone when I was chowing down 5,000 calories a day; you can bet your bottom dollar this 14-year-old isn't about to let his mamma put him on a diet anytime soon!

I'm sure she wouldn't win any awards for Mother of the Year, but I'm telling you, unless she's putting a gun to her kid's head to force down the enormous amount of food he's got to be eating, she doesn't deserve felony charges. Worse still is the precedent this case could set: is the Nanny State going to start prosecuting parents who don't maintain their children's weight within "acceptable" guidelines according to some arbitrary figure? Who smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, or fail to take their children to a dentist regularly? And where does this governmental interference stop once we let it get started?

Just my two pence worth.

I had two siblings at my school who were morbidly obese. The older one, a 5th grader, weighed in at 300 lbs and had gained 100 lbs in ONE YEAR. The younger one was not quite so heavy, but still very very large. They were in the after school program, and parents are required to send a snack. These kid's SNACK was a super-sized meal from McD's. No one can tell me that the parent is not culpable in these cases. The kids do not buy the food, do not cook the food. The parents have control over the food choices.

Both kids had signs of pre-diabetes and already had high BP. The mother never did take them to the doctor, and after begging for months, I was seriously considering calling CPS. Before I had a chance to do so the mother passed away from complications of obesity (she was at least 550, by my estimates, and was heading her kids in the same direction). Within months, both kids had lost weight. By the end of this school year, they were both noticably slimmer.

I'm sorry, but when the parent controls the food, they should absolutely be held responsible when the kids are morbidly obese. I am not talking a little overweight here. This is just as serious a medical issue as if they failed to have the child treated for asthma, or a broken limb. Maybe even more serious.

Once the child is an adult, he/she controls his/her own destiny. Until that time, it is the parent's responsibility. I can see cutting them a little slack for teenagers who can get their own food, but there is no way these kids became that obese just within their teen years and from their own choices.

Again I say, unless you have been there, you cannot throw darts at parents who "allow" their child to become massively obese. It is NOT that simple. Kids like this 14-year-old are obsessed with food from an early age, and they will do ANYTHING to get to it---they will steal money from their parents, siblings, friends; they will sneak out in the middle of the night or bribe someone else to get them the food they want; they will shoplift food from stores. You can put all the salad and fresh fruit in the house that you can afford, but they will simply get the junk elsewhere.....it's not that difficult.

I don't disagree that the mom should not have been an enabler. There was a lot she might have done early in his childhood that could have saved him from becoming so heavy. But life is not fair, and from what I read, she did not have the money nor the luxury of access to nutritionists, pediatricians, and specialists that someone a little higher on the socioeconomic ladder might have had. She probably isn't well educated herself, but there are times when no matter how much you may KNOW, it's difficult or impossible to DO what's best. Poverty, stress, environment........all of these have adverse effects on people, and sometimes it's all they can do just to slog through every day. Perhaps this was her life, and making it more complicated by threatening her with prison just doesn't seem right...........to me anyway.

From a legal standpoint, parents are always culpable for their childrens actions. This is why parents of ill behaved children are always sued.

The only problem I have with this is that I think the prosecutors are reaching with the charges that they are using.

I have no problem with a law holding a parent responsible but the law used and the charges applied need to match the crime being committed.

Otherwise we'll start charging friends with Attempted Murder when they peer pressure another friend into trying a cigarette...