Why is underfeeding a child counted as abuse, but overfeeding not?

[Gemmitygem]

A friend and I were discussing this the other day..

Why is it abuse to withold food from your child so they are underfed/underweight, and you can be prosecuted for that, but NOT abuse to overfeed your child till they get obese?

(assuming that there are equally adverse health risks to the child from both).

It's an interesting one!

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Oh, Carmenere, your psychologist mate is getting a nasty dig in at working parents! So we feel guilty and let them eat cake and/or give them cash to buy crisps? I don't think so.

I went to a private boarding school (scholarship, and hated it, so no social inferences please!) and the food was fucking inedible. Without exception. I don't know what the budget for food was but those people cannot have had a clue about nutrition. I was under 7 stone when I left school (I'm 5'9) and lived on black coffee and green apples.

Is that abuse or neglect? Or does it not matter when the victims are perceived as toffs' kids?

That's awful batters

carmenere, the friends I have who are SAHMs are >much more likely to mollify their children with sweet treats because of the stress of being with them all the time

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poor little thing batters

Well MI I don't think she was, she was stating that parents are reluctant to have arguements with their kids because they diddn't want to spend the precious time they have left with them by the time they finish work fighting.
Now that makes bagloads of sense to me, and I work, part time admittedly but I can see how if you are stressed and tired after a days work you may not want to spend the evening or weekend at odds with your kids.
She wasn'nt unsympathetic to working parents, rather she was lamenting a problem with society.

I think the problem is more to do with a reluctance that many parents have for saying No to children

Well, yes, if you perceive parents working outside the home as a problem; and/or assume that all working parents are beset with guilt about the fact they work. One could equally well construct an argument that parents who spend less of the day with their children are eager to enjoy the time they have together (so that they switch the telly off) and are in a better position to stick to rules about eating because they only have to engage in battle (if that is what it is!) for a limited amount of time.

Yes MI you could make that valid arguement but she was commenting on her experience as a child psychologist who deals with obese children. It's not a criticism of working parents, it is a criticism of lazy parents, at least that's what I understood by it.

I met a lovely woman (SAHM) whose 12 yr old was about 13 stone (could barely do 2 or 3 step exercises without getting completely breathless) and she felt terribly guilty about the state he'd got into (joint problems and close to developing diabetes) but is now helping him to cut down and take supervised exercise.

Call me naive but if you are a caring parent, why allow your DC to get to such a state and then take steps to do something about it? I don't get it. If I saw that my DTS were ballooning due to their diet and lack of exercise, I would take immediate action to improve their diet and get them moving.

speedymama, I see what you're saying but this had happened very gradually and there's no way this woman didn't care for her son, and now with help she's doing something about it.

I hope she succeeds

Well I seem to remember that there have been some cases where parents of obesely overweight teenagers have been convicted of neglect (maybe it was in the US). At the time I wondered why mothers of anorexic girls weren't being prosecuted too.

Also it is incredibly difficult to refuse food to a child who is constantly demanding it. I have a lovely friend who feeds her children a very healthy diet but who is in a constant struggle with her 6 year old who is overweight. Her dd is always asking for food and constantly refusing is wearing - she offers healthy foods but in the end food is food and if you eat more than your body needs even if it is 'healthy' you will get fat.

cat64 I think grazing is fine as long as the food is healthy, children have small stomachs that digest food fast. Sometimes little and often is better.

lazycow, you're right, there has been cases in the US of neglect with parents of obese children (Some of which actually died becuase of ilness related to their weight). However, when doing some polls to see how parents see their child ie Ok, skinny or overweight, a lot, I mean the majority, of parents with overweight children don't see them like this but just right. So it's not that these parents are, out of knowledge or on purpose, letting their child eat, but they just don't see the problem.
Behind that, there is a lot of different issues. Some are related to the parents (are they burrying their head in the sand, just giving up their role as a parent, not wanting to make the effort to take their child to exercice one way or the other etc...) and some with the child itslef. If these children are eating like this it is usually because food as become a confort habit and this needs to be tackled too.
I also think there is a society/culture issue. With so many adults around that are overweight or obese, that's the role model that WE, the adults, are giving to our children, along with what and how we are eating, if or not we actually exercice, how much time we spend in front of the TV (or the comuter/internet ). It's easy to have a go to one individuals but I think that the situation is much more complex than that.

Theres no evidence that grazing is more inclined to make you overweight at any age. Agreed with anthonykblahblah - its what they eat not how often.

Also the reason underfeeding is abuse is that the child will become ill pretty damn quickly whereas overfeeding sets up problems for later life which are a risk factor - ie you are not guaratneed to die from being overweight it makes you more likely to develop certian life threatening conditions.

Social Services/police etc are only interested in things which are a reasonably immediate danger to the child. Morbidly obese children should be on some kind of at risk register IMO (as I speak as someone who's overweight), but anything else should be approached through education in the same way as smoking near babies is now considered unacceptable by most mothers due to the risk of cot death. Smoking mothers were not rounded up and charged with child endangerment, there was a huge education campaign getting mothers to understand the various risk factors.

I really think some parents don't see that their kids are too heavy.

When my DS1 was tiny, he was underweight, and I really wanted him to put on weight. I remember looking at an obese 10-year-oldish boy in the swimming pool, with a big belly, and thinking he looked nice and healthy.

Now DS1 is very skinny, because we are active people and eat a very healthy diet (no crisps, minimal sugar, no white carb). But I'm not sure I would have noticed him being fat, as he got older.

Agree with everything so far. I would also like to add that, whilst DD1 is in no way obese (not even fat) she has recently put on a little tum. She is almost 12 and it is hard to monitor everything she eats, but she has a very healthy packed lunch every day, and I would NEVER allow fizzy/sugary drinks (this is why her teeth are so clean and free from any hint of a cavity!) She can be a bit of a gannet, and I will readily say no to her when she is at home and looking to pick at stuff when I know she could not be hungry, but I am not with her all the time. Also because of where we have been living, she has had a much less active lifestyle recently. She has a tendency to laziness, but loves swimming lessons on Mondays and also goes to a running club on Tuesdays and Thursdays (although sometimes I have to make her go) When I pointed out to her that her putting on weight (and she definitely has) was due to sitting about too much and that she needed to do more exercise and stop thinking about what to eat next all the time, my MIL took me aside and asked was I not worried that mentioning her weight to her would make her anorexic??!! I am not cruel in my observation of her burgeoning weight, and never made her feel like she was a 'fat pig', I merely pointed out what was causing it and providing the solution. As I (rather acerbically) then pointed out to my MIL obesity is a far more common problem than anorexia, and IMO anorexia is more of a mental condition rather than a tendency to under-eat. But I think MILs (misguided) notion may be a common one - we dare not tell them they are getting fat in case they then turn anorexic, as though the two are inseperable.

I would be very carefull telling a teenage girl that she is putting on weight. I can remember my mum comparing me to one of my friend and saying 'You don't want to be as big as her!'. Result : I hadn't thought that that friend was huge and became uneasy about my boddy, making thinks worse! Because I though I was big, my confidence dropped and I didn't see any point in being carefull (too late wasn't it). I can also see how putting a lot of pressure on teenager about their weight can lead to anorexia (That's just the oppositive reaction than the one I had).
Teenagers boddy are changing a lot and it is normal for a young girl to look as if she had 'put some weight' at that age.
It is obvious that the same rules apply for teenagers as for children - exercice, diet etc...- but I would emphasize much more that exercice is good for you, a great way to make firneds, to feel good about yourself etc.. than talking about weight.

I agree with the last post and indeed with your MIL. She's 12, and she's (a) going to change her bodyshape at that age (b) entering an age where girls are horribly self-conscious about their bodies and whether they are 'too fat'.

My parents pointed out that I was getting fatter (a crime akin to murder in my family) when I was slightly younger than your daughter. I spent several decades horribly unhappy about my body as a result. Oh, and my sister became anorexic.