An Ohio third-grader who weighs more than 200 pounds has been taken from his family and placed into foster care after county social workers said his mother wasn't doing enough to control his weight.
The Plain Dealer reports (http://bit.ly/t68M7D ) that theCleveland 8-year-old is considered severely obese and at risk for such diseases as diabetes and hypertension.
The case is the first state officials can recall of a child being put in foster care strictly for a weight-related issue.
Lawyers for the mother say the county overreached when authorities took the boy last week. They say the medical problems he is at risk for do not yet pose an imminent danger.
A spokeswoman says the county removed the child because caseworkers saw his mother's inability to reduce his weight as medical neglect.
The mother was working with the State to reduce her child's weight. The foster family is having similar problems the mother was having, with others sneaking him food. But beyond all this how is being overweight considered neglect or medical neglect? Was "medical neglect" recently added so as to give the State another excuse reason to intervene where the State has no business doing so? And who decides what qualifies as "medical neglect"? Both the mother and her child obviously need some type of assistance and/or counseling but IMO taking away the child harms the child more than keeping the child with his mother. This is government interventionism run amok. We need to put the kabosh on the government overreaching into our private lives.
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