http://news.yahoo.com/...oster-care-191032515.html

Do you think the kid should have been taken? I think that mom is bad and shouldn't have kids if she can't properly take care of them! 200lbs in 3rd grade? What the hell...

KJ is gonna have a feild day with this lol

that kid didn't miss any meals.

poor son goku!


Trife
LCN leader of the pro-chipotle movement

lol@trife

"They say the medical problems he is at risk for do not yet pose an imminent danger."

lol. He'll be fine for a while so there's no problem!

Imagine being 8 and already being doomed to virginity.

if his obesity was not due to a medical condition or being 6'-0" tall, then yes, it's abuse.

I'm sure they'll diagnose him with some "medical condition", but most likely his only problems are a very fluffty set of parents and a very inactive childhood.

http://t1.gstatic.com/...pnMd5DXSDHw3eEmK2j9BeJkEA

:(

sad story :(

but.... I gotta ask... what is the family like? are they also big folks? is this partially genetic to begin with?

I agree with children being protected, but I gotta kind of agree with the kid's mom -- what is the imminent danger to the kid?

Where is he being kept? is he put in a fat camp? being forced to go on a diet?

What's likely better for his long-term physical well being is likely also hurting him psychologically. That'll be a short AND long term problem.

Seems like there was some poor parenting and poor handling of this issue. No one wins in a situation like this :(

suppose it's easier to keep them out of trouble that way. long as they stay on the ground floor. don't think i'd like to be in the way if he fell off the balcony.

I think its a slippery slope we are climbing. Where does it end if we let the gov control how we raise our kids. I am not saying the parents were right- i think they were obv wrong. However, i think a community intervention would have been better. If the gov tried to take my kids away they would have to do it from my cold dead hands.

Where does it end? Next it will be he was allowed the wrong kind of music. Or maybe the parents were raising him from the wrong political party. The gov should not be allowed to determine whats right and wrong for our kids. Unless there are broken bones, sex abuse or things of that nature- i say leave the parents to raise their own. When you control how a kid is raised you are also taking responsibility for their care and actions. We don't need the gov running all aspects of our lives.

Why do anti-establishment types always escalate logic to absurities? What is government intervention but community will at work? If a child is exposed to an undue level of physical or psychological harm, they should be removed from their parents' care.

It's not like this case happened over night.

"County workers were alerted to the child's weight in early 2010 after his mother took him to a hospital for breathing problems. He was diagnosed with sleep apnea, which can be weight-related, and was given the breathing machine. Social workers began to monitor him under what the county calls protective supervision.

Last year, the boy lost weight but in recent months began to gain it back rapidly. That's when the county moved to take the child, records show.

The mother said that when she found out that other kids and a sibling might be giving her son extra food, she tried to put a stop to it and explain to him that he could eat only certain foods.

She tried to follow the recommendations of the doctors, such as getting him a bike and encouraging him to get exercise.

The mother wonders what role genetics plays in the boy's condition -- both she and his father and some other family members are overweight, she said. However, she also has a 16-year-old son who is tall and thin."

This 8-year-old, 218 pound kid needed a harsh wake-up call to reality. Hopefully, he'll be restored to his mother's care when his weight starts to drop again, otherwise this is more than just another case of children ignoring their parents.

It's really hard to judge. Maybe he was sneaking food and others were enabling him (teachers, friends, grandparents, etc.). Who knows?

That's pretty messed up. I'd do anything in my power to stop that from happening to my child. It's hard to feel too much sympathy for that mother when you just read the news story, but you never know the real story. Could be a weird medical condition or like I said others were secretly enabling him.

Could have been a lot of things that we will never know. But one thing I do know is society has a moral obligation to make sure our kids are not abused. I have a hard time thinking that a kid that young got that heavy and his parents didn't have any control. Don't tell me you as a parent have no control over your children.

I'd never let that happen to my kids. If I thought people were sneaking him/her food I'd put a stop to it one way or another, If I thought he had a medical condition I'd be going to the doctor to find out what is going on medically... Point is whatever the parents were or weren't doing wasn't enough to properly safeguard their children's health, which is btw the most important thing a person could have in life: good health.

I'm not saying taking the kid away is the answer either, maybe some parenting classes, medical checkups, something, anything that keeps the kid with his/her parents and to try and help them.

When I originally saw the news article I couldn't believe any parent would set back and watch that happen but you never know these days...

I counting on the story to include how he receives free Breakfast and Lunch at school too, not that the state would have any guilt included.

He has slim siblings, so what is it about him different, ? He has some genetics traits different?, he has some emotional issues?, something occur over time that changed the way he was/is being brought up compared to those siblings?

Just hope the foster home system don't add to his problems in other ways, just to screw him up even more.

It's not just diet, that's for sure. Not sure what the recommended intervention would be.. usually addicts don't change behavior until they realize they are going to die on their current course, and I'm not sure how to shock a 3rd-grader into realizing that he's about to die.

Take him to the cardiac wing on a busy hospital and show him a patient suffering a heart attack; after that take him to the morgue and tell him everyong there died because they ate too much.

Problem fixed