A suggestion from the American Medical Association to take obese children away from their parents is coming under fire.
The commentary says foster care is more ethical than obesity surgery because long-term effects of the operation in children are unknown.
7&4's Kate Fox spoke with local health department and foster care officials who weighed in on the write-up.
Personal Health Administrator Kit Mikovitz from the Grand Traverse Health Department says, "I think anytime you remove a child from the home you're destroying a family structure... So unless you help correct the issues at home you're not fixing anything!"
Child & Family Services of Northwestern Michigan Executive Director Jim Scherrer says, "It's an extreme response! Very big efforts are made to keep a child with their own family...so a child being removed and placed in foster care should be a situation of absolute last resort."
To hear more on what they had to say, check out the video above.
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The JAMA article was written by David Ludwig, an obesity doctor at Children’s Hospital Boston, and by lawyer Lindsey Murtagh, a researcher at Harvard’s School of Public Health.
Murtagh told the Associated Press that foster care may be needed to protect children suffering obesity-related health problems. The goal, Ludwig said, is to educate the family to allow for reunification.
"Many biological, psychosocial, and behavioral factors affect energy balance and, therefore, childhood weight gain, with parents playing an important mediating role. Ubiquitous junk food marketing, lack of opportunities for physically active recreation, and other aspects of modern society promote unhealthful lifestyles in children. Inadequate or unskilled parental supervision can leave children vulnerable to these obesigenic environmental influences."
To read the full article by the AMA click on THIS LINK.
To see more details on childhood obesity from the American Medical Association CLICK HERE.
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