Fat children should be taken into care, says doctor

| 13/07/2011

(Daily Mail): Dr David Ludwig, an obesity specialist at Harvard-affiliated Children's Hospital Boston, has said the state should pluck obese children from their families for their own good. In a controversial piece, published in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr Ludwig writes that putting overweight children into foster care is 'in some cases more ethical than obesity surgery'. The scenario has already happened, a number of times, in the US according to the doctor who is now calling for more action. In the provocative opinion piece Dr Ludwig claims it is best for the state to act in the child's best interests and get them the help their parents cannot provide, rather than blaming the parents outright.

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  1. Just Commentin' says:

    This is especially true of fat armless kids like the poor victim of "SPAA" in the photo next to the article.

    Scary picture. The photo of the armless kid has accompanied a paper submitted by a researcher to the The Journal of the American Medical Association – the same publication that published Dr. Ludwigs paper. The research paper establishes a correlation between childhood obesity and one or both of the individual's arms spontaneously falling off prior to the child reaching puberty. The alarming condition is known as "SPAA" or Spontaneous Pre-adolescent Armlessness.

    The researcher theorises that the condition could be triggered by a natural genetically-linked somatic response: the human body is programmed to self-preservation. In some cases it does pretty radical things to survive. When gravely stressed by a barrage of junk food, saturated fats, sugar, and excess calories, in some cases apparently the body finally reacts violently and the tissues attaching the arms to the shoulder almost instantly degenerate and the arms fall off without warning. Lacking arms the person finds it harder to stuff himself/herself with excessive food – weight loss occurs and the body has then rendered itself less likely to fall prey to the many health risks associated with obesity.

    Spontaneous Pre-adolescent Armlessness: all the more reason to encourage your child to loose weight! Just show 'em the picture above and they will realise that without arms use of a cell phone to text their friends will forever cease. Forget blogging and IM'ing using their laptop keyboard. OMG! Imagine a life without text messaging! Trust me, such a scenario will compel even the most hard-core food addicted young person to eat healthy and loose weight.

    Dr. Ludwig has suggested a radical "police state" approach to the problem. I propose a much simpler solution: similar to how those on probation here are banned from liquor establishments, the court should ban the entire families of obese youngsters from all fast food establishments and from buying prepackaged junk food  – pizzas, Hot Pockets, candy bars, Twinkies, Cheetos, etc. As positive encouragement they could reward pounds lost with extra minutes on the kids' cell phones. That should get 'em to trade their Bacon Double Cheeseburgers for cottage cheese on lettuce.

    Regarding the silly and dangerous idea proposed by the doctor, I would think that being plucked from one's family would impose far more damage in the form of long-term emotional distress than excess belly rolls ever would. If Dr. Ludwig had bothered to check he would have been faced with the reality that kids in state-run child care are far more likely than their peers to end up in jail, homeless or pregnant – sometimes all three. They are also less likely to hold a job or go to college.

    Yeah, I would say that Ludwig's suggestion is a bit, eh, controversial alright. (It seems that these days the term "controversial" has become synonymous with "moronic".) Just what we need: a system that produces dumb jobless criminals with minimal body fat, and slender uneducated homeless women who don't know who dey baby-daddy is. Ludwig must have ordered his doctor's degree from an online gag shop. I fully expect to see Lucy from Peanuts as contributor to the JAMA soon.

    Disclaimer: The research cited above is not wholly conclusive (but pretty damn close) as it is based on the researcher's post-long-martini-lunch pondering of the picture in the article. (Alright, I am the researcher, ok?) But before you get too critical here, I did put in lots of time researching this potentially devastating new condition.Just a few minutes ago I typed and submitted (emailed) my research paper (both pages) to the The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) along with my entire body of exhaustive research (the picture of the armless chubby kid here). I have not received a response as yet; however, I am confident of it being published. Hell, if the JAMA will publish Ludwig's silly idea they will publish anything. Due to the ample evidence (just look at the photo here in CNS as conclusive proof of SPAA's effects) I am certainly expecting that the JAMA will name me as the world's (top and only) expert on SPAA by this evening, or tomorrow morning at the latest. It is my hope that through increased awareness and public suport we can stop SPAA in its tracks before it becomes a global epidemic. I will be accepting donations for further research tonight at The Doghouse bar. (All donations should be served "neat", thanks.)