Coincidence??

I was talking to my mom yesterday about the baby exercise guidelines. I told her about my opinion - that they make these up so they can then say "Shame on you. I told you what to do! Tsk, tsk...". Then conversation came around to- "Wouldn't it be awful if the government decided they could take your kids away from you because they were obese." Response: "Oh yeah that would be awful".

Lo and behold what news article creeps onto the news, a story entitled: "Watch Out Parents: The State May Want to Take Away Your Obese Kids". I am not kidding - I still can't believe the turnaround. So if you read the article, the kids that were taken away definitely had serious medical issues. What they didn't report on was how many chances did they give the parents to change behaviors and habits. Did they take away the children because parents were irresponsible and neglectful and that led to the obesity or was it solely based on the child's weight. There are soooo many questions in regards to this policy. When will they start saying - "isn't it just cruel to let a 12 year-old reach 400? We should step in now and prevent this horrible thing from happening; we have to protect the children". What a slippery slope- it makes me very nervous. I don't even really know what to say about it...

The article references the successful weight loss and other positive health impacts that happened in the foster system and I think this should not necessarily be construed as a success. I think that these kids are probably uncomfortable in this environment and put on a regiment that they dare not reject or deviate from - or what they'll get sent somewhere else. They probably just want to go home. They probably figure I need to obey and loose weight so I can go home. I hope they do get to go home.

I also found this article about reducing the chances of childhood obesity - a remarkable simple answer...yet we don't have the government mandating breastfeeding... :) Which I don't really want or anything(I'm not a huge fan of government telling me what to do) - I'm just saying.