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Showing posts with the label Overweight Children

"An Apple a Day Keeps the Food Police Away?"

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Everyone who wants to do good to the human race always ends in universal bullying . --Aldous Huxley I hate overweight, because it implies that there's a weight standard I should be adhering to. --Camryn Manheim The other day, Dr. Oz had some "experts" on his show who believe that fat children are "abused" and should be taken away from their parents and placed in foster care. Really? Are we getting so ridiculous here in the U.S. that we are going to hunt down overweight children and penalize their parents? Call in the Fat Police? Arrest parents? Set up government orphanages and boarding schools for overweight kids? Look. I agree that good eating habits begin at home, and, perhaps, parents need some refresher courses in proper nutrition, but even to suggest that children should be removed from their homes because of excess weight is just beyond the pale. I mean, does Children's Social Services remove kids because their parents smoke cigarettes

Thought for the Day--May 4, 2011: STOP Stigmatizing Overweight Children

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The above image has been manipulated from an April 21, 2011, ad, from the website www.stopchildhoodobesity.com (see original ad below). ________________________________________ The original ad : According to Katu.com , "This advertisement, part of a 'Stop Child Obesity' campaign in Georgia, won some enthusiastic praise for their attention-grabbing tactics. But they also have outraged parents, activists and academics who feel the result is more stigma for an already beleaguered group of children." ________________________________ Stigma is not an effective motivator. --Rebecca Puhl, psychologist and a leading expert on weight discrimination (Yale University) "Shaming" and bullying a child into losing weight rarely works. I know this from personal experience; as a chubby child (I wasn't quite "fat," whatever that means), my well-meaning grandmother (who raised me) would often embarrass me in front of relatives, including children, in the hope tha

Memoir Madness: Driven to Involuntary Commitment