proteus_b: D_Evans45: Even exercise that isnt strenuous is great for losing weight. I know a lot of people are so afraid to lose weight because of that ominous exercise monster. After you see even slight results exercise becomes almost fun. Even if youre lazy, you can do a bit of beneficial light exercise and see results.

I do exercise a few times a week, and I'm just kind of kidding with my posts---of course if I really wanted, I would have to either drink less or eat less or exercise more.

But actually I think strenuous exercise in general is a terrible formula for weight loss for most people, because they easily make up the difference in calories by eating a little bit extra, since they feel hungrier and entitled to on account of the exercise. For most people, learning to not eat when they're not hungry (and stopping to eat some hours before bedtime) is probably much more important than even incorporating any exercise, since it's possible to exercise strenuously several times a week and still be a fatbody, while someone who eats less than they burn, no matter how much they exercise, will lose weight.

I agree so much. I'm all about exercising because it is my understanding that it is good for my body. BUT, will just doing some crazy exercise regime and still eating whatever you want make you lose weight? Probably not. After an hour of swimming I am starving. It makes calorie counting or controlling what you eat even more important (because if you don't eat decent food you won't have the energy to exercise). For me, the most important parts of maintaining my weight are 1. Not eating when I'm not hungry and never getting to "OMG I"M STARVING" and 2. Going to bed at least a little hungry

American Civil Liberties Union attorney James Hardiman, who represented the mother, told the judge that since returning to Cleveland the boy has received a free membership to a local YMCA, a Big Brother assignment through the Big Brothers, Big Sisters program and the county will pay for half of the cost of weekly cooking classes for his family.

WTF is this sh*t?!

Yanno... the ACLU does so much awesome stuff for civil right and whatnot but then does sh*t like this that makes me hate their whackjob asses.

Also at his low weight of 166 he still outweighed me.

/full grown man

SweetSilverBlues: A few accidents does not bad parenting make. Chronic incidents with a pattern do.

If those three hospitalizations happened because of the same situation, then that's at risk parenting and you do need to be investigated.

I just put a playset and a trampoline outside in the backyard. Say my son falls off the monkey bars of the playset and breaks his leg? Or my daughter misteps on the trampoline and breaks something. What if both children got injured within six months of each other? Understand that this fits your standard. If you expect a government institution to show common sense - clearly you don't pay enough attention. If the decision is made that a government authority has the right to bring a case against someone - they will. Fishing for stats is how many justify the increases in budgets they seek (or simply defend their budget in times of cutbacks). And in this instance there was an extended family willing to step in. What about the other cases. Do you think your average foster care is any better suited to deal with special needs? And if they end up in a state run juvie facility? How do you think that goes for the kid?

Your expectation of normality may actually be the problem, here.

FarkinHostile: Plain and simple, this is child abuse.


It's a tough one, though, as many parents as just ignorant of proper nutrition and healthy lifestyle. They don't take care of themselves, how can they be expected to take proper care of a child? Nevermind the mentally ill parents.

Yet anyone can have as many babies as they want or even don't want.

Jesus Wept.

See, here's the thing: In the United States, the Department for Children And Families (DCF) define child maltreatment as any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or other caregiver that results in harm, potential for harm, or threat of harm to a child.

Giving a baseball bat to your child is abuse by that standard. Putting your child in a car is an action that can result in potential harm or the threat of harm. Every thing you can do fits that definition. But let's take a look at your comment about how this woman doesn't even know - so if she is behaving in a manner that fits in her life (say she is obese) how is it not her right to raise an obese child. If it's ok for her to be obese - clearly it must be ok for him to be. That's not abuse, it's stupidity.

I don't see the big deal if a kid is 200 lbs. I don't see the big deal if a fourth grader drops dead of a heart attack on the playground of his school. I get that you don't like this - but who should have to care what you like?

Should she raise her child like this? I would say no. Should you and anyone else say that she can't? I would say no again. This isn't sexual abuse. This isn't physical abuse (stop and don't bother, it isn't - physical abuse is hitting, kicking, biting, pushing, etc.). This isn't emotional abuse. This is bad parenting but only by my standard of parenting. Is this worse than these mothers who plaster their family on TV for toddlers and tiaras or Teen Mom? Not to me. Hell, why not take a pregnant teen away from her family. If she's still considered a minor by law, that's bad parenting. Force her to give birth in a state facility. Why not?

Because why is it my concern? Why do so many of you feel compelled to pretend to care about this kid or that you know better. If you had a picture of this kid you'd be mocking him mercilessly with funny captions or putting his address on the internet so you could all take turns ordering pizzas to his house. Plenty of you are overweight by your own admissions. Plenty of you binge drink or drink heavily by your own admission. Plenty of you would down a cheeseburger rather than a salad with a nice sauteed whitefish - so why do other people have to live to a standard that most of them don't farking live up to? Because they don't like themself? That seems farked up to say the least.

WhippingBoy: QT_3.14159: WhippingBoy: How can a "hormonal issue" cause you to gain weight??? Does it cause the ambient calores present in the air to be absorbed through your skin or something?

Actually, since hormones regulate our system they can in fact trigger our bodies to store calories instead of burn them. They can also trigger constant "hunger" signals and drive you to continue to eat.

Right now there are doctors helping middle aged women lose all kinds of weight, just by adjusting their hormone levels.

I guess noticing that you're gaining weight and then adjusting your exercise level/food intake before you gain *too* much weight isn't the "quick fix" so many people are desperate for...

Try that while having untreated hypothyroidism. Enjoy not being able to do anything else because you're too damn tired.

FarkinHostile:

Yeah, well,when the entire medical profession (and just about everyone else) agrees that obesity is harmful, that goes a little beyond a simple opinion.

I'm not going to argue against the medical opinion that obesity is bad for you. This is not me saying that obesity is not as bad as people say it is.

Agreed, but we stop/legislate against harmful stupidity all the time. Faith healer instead of doctor when the kid is sick? If the kid dies, parent gets charged. This is similar.

I know there are growing instances of doctors taking children away from religious people for treatment - but do doctors do that when it comes to someone who believes that vaccines are harmful?

Really?

Yes and no. I'm not without sympathy but the point stands that this is none of my business. How many people do you think would pass this woman and child in the street and call CPS? But now that he has breathing problems? Is obese but not with trouble breathing make it ok? Does any obese person not have trouble breathing at some point?

Even court ordered nutrition classes would be a positive thing. I'm not advocating taking the kid away and putting it in a home, just MAKE the parent learn.

Then I agree with you completely. Well, almost. The parent may very well be a lost cause. Make the parent learn for the child if you can. If not make the child learn. Kids do that well. However, give authority an inch and they will hang you from the nearest tree. That was my upbringing.

Neglect is physical abuse, and doesn't entail any of that.

No. Neglect is actually not considered physical abuse. Neglect is the charge brought if there is no intention to harm but someone could have done something to different. Like talking on the phone when your child hurts themselves.

Tell that to the fat kid who is embarrassed to shower after gym. Tell that to the fat kid who gets picked on every day. Tell that to the fat kid who can't get a date to the prom. Because his mother is an ignorant cow.

That's not on him. How the world shiats on him is on the world, not him. Sure he could conform to our standards but if we start forcing that on people?

Can you imagine if a some jurisdiction decided that a family that came to terms with a child's homosexuality were neglecting the child? Authority makes the determination based on precedent and precedent alone. One court determines a lifestyle is wrong, another attempts to apply it in the same manner. Where do you stop telling people what they legally can do? (also, yes I am going to extremes to make a point - but I also do believe that there is a reasonable bridge between the two)

Bad parenting is not the same as abuse,

It is in this instance.

Come on now, we DO know better than to allow a child to become dangerously obese.

Not all of us apparently. This ties to education point you make. Also, are there not health issues tied to moderately overweight people?

Humor is a way to cope with ugly aspects of reality. And I wouldn't because I was a fat kid. I wish someone had taught my mom proper nutrition. I had to do that on my own, and years later that I should have.

Would you, looking back on it, be ok with CPS coming and removing you from your mother's care? This will tie back into your last point, too. I mean, my parents were. Well they weren't the greatest of parents. They did their best. They provided for us and loved us in their way, but fark it - they smoked around us, they let us run wild as long as we got away with it, they never really bothered with things like talks and heart to hearts, at least not with me and I don't talk to my brothers so I guess I wouldn't know if they did it for them and just got bored of it when it came to me. I'd still rather have been raised by them than foster and/or state care.

Well, when I make a child binge drink or drink heavily you will have a point. I wouldn't, nor would I make a child obese. I'm not talking chubby, I'm talking about obese. That is abuse, IMNSHO. If a parent lets their child smoke cigarettes, they would be in trouble, and obesity is quite possibly WORSE than smoking!

Few of us our as healthy as we would like to be, was my point. And my prior question about health issues with just moderately overweight people stands. And smoking and obesity are equally bad, I would say. I used to smoke. In the declining stages of my marriage(which I guess would be my marriage in it's farking entirety), I started smoking again. I never once smoked around my children. Because, my parents used to smoke around us. Any wonder that all three kids of their kids ended up smokers? You raise yours, they raise theirs.

I read an article, considering what I was going through at the time it was like a lightning strike, about how hard it is to make someone with a mental illness actually see they have a mental illness. Sometimes the hardest person to convince to change is the person that needs it.

I like the idea of court ordered nutrition classes with medical supervision for obese children and their parents. I don't mind my taxes going to education.

Now that is a solution to a problem, not a creation of more problems for people other than this one case. And get them in early and often. Have medical communities contacting when something like this starts. Not when he's starting to have trouble breathing. Try to get them to make the right decision. If they can't then, this is what is going to happen.

And after trying it the hard way, they give her a legal validation.