By Dr Ananya Mandal, MD
In a controversial new opinion piece in the Journal of the American Medical Association the authors suggest taking severely obese children out of their homes and placing them in foster care. Dr. David Ludwig, an obesity specialist at Harvard-affiliated Children’s Hospital Boston and Lindsey Murtagh, a lawyer and a researcher at Harvard’s School of Public Health, write that in some cases it may be justified to take an extremely obese child out of their parents’ custody.
Childhood obesity affects nearly two million kids in the United States and is quickly becoming a problem in Canada as well. Short of better parental education and medical intervention, however, doctors and health care workers struggle with how to tackle the issue.
Dr. David Ludwig, claims he's not blaming parents but protecting children. He said State intervention will “support not just the child but the whole family, with the goal of reuniting child and family as soon as possible.” Ludwig proposes foster care in drastic cases, where surgery might have been the alternative.
The opinion argues that some kids who suffer from Type 2 diabetes, breathing difficulties or liver problems should be removed from their home for their own protection. The goal would be to educate the parent and reunite the family as quickly as possible.