Charging parents of obese children with neglect

[Oenopod]

In the Guardian today www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jul/16/parents-obese-children-neglect#start-of-comments

They are talking about parents who sabotage attempts to help obese children rather than the parents of every slightly overweight child but do you think it's feasible?

I think it's definitely feasible. Starving children is unacceptable/illegal and, given that there has been at least one occasion when an owner was charged in court for causing unnecessary suffering to their morbidly obese labrador , I should think children in a similar situation deserve the same legal protection.

kind of agree...

I think it probably is feasible if the children are already under a GPs care for obesity and the parents obviously do not help, or indeed deliberately sabotage their child's diet.

I think it does come under ill-treatment, neglect, etc in the same way that starvation would (and no-one would think that was being too heavy-handed)

Wonder if it will come to anything...

unfortunately I wouldn't trust them to oversee the execution of any such regulation. Most people don't have enough common sense.

that poor dog (Chil1234's post)

I do think it is a good idea in part, there are some parents out there who have no interest in their child's welfare or have some psychological need to make their child dependent on them by making them unable to form a life of their own. As you said Oenopod there is a criminal intent in starving a child.

It isn't love, however warped that idea is, it is abuse.

Just to extend the labrador example a little further... did you know that the first successful child cruelty case in Britain was brought by the RSPCA. The child had to be described for the prosecution purposes as 'a small animal' as there were no laws against child cruelty at the time. The NSPCC was created much later than the RSPCA

Suggests we haven't really progressed much in the labrador vs human child protection stakes. And, as the parents of the babies savaged by a fox discovered, animals still get preferential treatment.