Social workers take obese boy from mother's care

AN eight-year-old American boy, who weighs more than 90kg, has been taken from his family and placed into foster care after social workers said his mother wasn't doing enough to control his weight.

The Plain Dealer newspaper reports the Cleveland boy is considered severely obese and at risk from 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 overreacted when authorities took the boy last week, saying the medical problems he's at risk of developing don't yet pose an imminent danger.

heraldsun.com.au 28 Nov 2011

Child abuse can occur in many forms, some of which are more clearer than others.

Apart from the more obvious abuse for egample physical or sexual, emotional abuse through bad parenting is also child abuse

Parents, society and the law have taken far too long to recognise that child obesity is actually child abuse.