Is Over Feeding your Child...Child Abuse

@Mamaof2 (574)
Canada
February 27, 2007 11:12am CST
Saw a quick little story on the tv today. Some mother in London has an 8 year old boy who weights over 200 pounds. Like 4x the average weight for a boy his age. Anyways, they are talking about taking the boy away..as they feel that she is purposly over feeding him. He has missed alot of school due to health problems as well. Appreantly he has losts 20 pounds...but they are still saying that she is not making the necessary changes in his diet so that he is heathy. Do you feel that Over Feeding your child is a form of abuse?
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1 response
@lauriefnp (5111)
• United States
27 Feb 07
This is a tough one to answer. I think that it's a good thing that the authorities have become involved, since this is obviously not a healthy weight or diet for an 8 year old boy. We don't know enough about the situation to say whether or not this is "abuse". It is possible that the mother suffers from a mental disorder called "Munchhausen syndorme by proxy", where the afflicted parent does things to deliberately cause illness in their own child in order to gain attention for themselves. (you can read about this at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munchausen_syndrome ). If the mother has this mental illness, then it is a form of child abuse and the authorities should be involved. If she is simply not careful with what she prepares for meals and allows him to gorge on junk food and if she sets poor examples through her own poor diet, then I would say that she would also benefit from dietary counseling and some sort of health monitoring for the child. Either way, some drastic changes need to be made so that this child loses the weight and regains his health. The fact that he has lost 20 pounds is a great sign, and hopefully this will continue.
@Mamaof2 (574)
• Canada
27 Feb 07
Thanks for the wonderful answer! I def agree that it could go both ways and I am sure Child Protective Servies are investigating the real cause for over feeding this boy. Like you said, if it is just a matter of poor choice of food and so on...both the child and mother need to be involved with some sort of course to teach them healthy lessons. Sometimes damage is done before it is actually picked up on or realized by the parent...so maybe this boy loosing 20 pound (which is a wonderful start) is her changing his eating habits and exercise...now that she has realized that there is an issue. Either way, I think it will be an interested story to follow! Thanks again!