Extremely Obese Children Removed from Parents’ Care in Australia
According to news sources, human-services authorities in Victoria have
sought protection for extremely obese children on at least two occasions in
2012, arguing to children’s court magistrates that they would be unable to
lose weight in their parents’ care. One case reportedly involved a preteen boy
who weighed more than 240 pounds and a teenage girl with a 66½-inch waist
that was greater than her height; she had apparently gained 66 pounds over
18 months.
The public is divided about whether weight management is an appropriate reason for removing children from their homes, and at least one obesity expert, Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute Associate Professor John Dixon, suggested that more cases like this can be expected. Dixon said that removal can be the best option in some cases, although he acknowledged that obesity “can be the result of a whole range of environmental issues, the food, the lack of transport, all sorts of things.” He also opined that obesity “also can be symptomatic of dysfunctional circumstances . . . where there’s problems; mental illness, siblings with disabilities, that really make family life for some of these children very complex indeed, and produce that rare circumstance where they may be better off out of home for a while.”
A spokesperson for the Victoria Department of Human Services reportedly
indicated that obesity alone was not grounds for child protection workers
to become involved with a family, agreeing that “obesity may be a symptom
of other issues that could place a child at risk or harm that would warrant
child-protection environment.” Area weight-management clinics reportedly
lack sufficient resources, and referrals can remain on waiting lists for a year
or longer. Dixon claimed that parental neglect is not usually a determinant
of obesity in children, and he called for improvements to health services to
address the problem. “We have very few services to manage children who
are very big,” he said, and “[p]arents are often reluctant to go to the doctor
or pediatrician . . . for fear they will be classified as being negligent or not
looking after their children very well at all.” See The Age and ABC.net.au, July
12, 2012.
