JAMA: State Should Seize Fat Children from Parents
By Jonathan Bean • Thursday July 14, 2011 9:54 AM PDT • 14 Comments
Welcome to the next chapter in our continuing coverage of Police State USA. In a JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) opinion piece, the authors argue for taking “super-obese” children from parents and putting them in foster care.
Having just researched the dark side of well-intentioned “Progressivism” (early 20th century), I find this chilling. Even more chilling that the author thinks there is no need for any further laws to enable doctors to give children to foster parents? True (and sadly), they don’t need new laws but there are competing laws emphasizing unity of parent-child even when Momma is on meth. So the kids go in-and-out of our benevolent state-run foster care system. This is the same Government that gave us Social Security—an agency that GIVES YOU MONEY for being “morbidly obese.” This is the straight-thinking State that is going to seize children from parents? God help us.
In the view of these Ivory Tower academics, The State sees something bad and swoops in to save the day. We normal human beings have been “Waiting for Superman” but Supermen already exist at the Harvard-affiliated Children’s Hospital and Harvard’s School of Public Health (the home of the JAMA authors)! Supermen and superwomen exist in DCFS agencies around the country. If only these angels ran the government, there would be no “super-obesity,” no anorexia, no bad behavior at all! Their strategy would eliminate “obesigenic environmental influences” (yes, “obesigenic” is jargon in their world).
The authors are careful not to “blame the parents”; they mention environmental factors but downplay genetics. Their Progressive predecessors took the next step to deal with the genetic angle: selective sterilization to weed out “imbeciles.” The State still has that power, but our authors assure us, state power over our bodies will only be used in extreme cases. (Buck v. Bell is the 1920s-era case that gives government the right to sterilize in the interests of “public health.” The Supreme Court has never overruled it. See my book Race and Liberty in America: The Essential Reader).
Disclosure: I was a “super-obese” teenager at 320 lbs. My brothers were normal weight. My parents urged me to limit my diet but I ate secretly. Then, on my own, I lost 140 lbs in a single year and have kept if off for 28 years (I’m 10 lb over my 21 year old weight). That was my decision. Imagine if the know-it-alls in DCFS had put me in foster care, supervised by my new rotating parents and caring social workers. Yes, children, this is our Brave New World fast in the making.
In the early 20th century, both here and in Europe, they called this approach “social hygiene”—control the parent-child relationship, particularly of the “inferior races”; use government schools as the primary vehicle and then add forced sterilization and other eugenics methods. These laws are still on the books so the JAMA authors are correct: we need no new laws to tear children from parents, to sterilize those who pose a risk of costing “Society” more, etc. The “social hygienists” were big on finding immigrant parents (Jews, Catholics especially) unfit because they ate the wrong foods, didn’t speak proper English in the home, the first IQ tests said that Jews were mental defects, etc., etc. So it really was “for their own good” for these these kids to be put them in orphanages or placed with other parents. And here’s the catch: many of these people (leaving aside the Klansmen who joined with “Progressives”) REALLY believed it was for in the “child’s best interest” and, more important, the “good of society.” They were driven by a desire to “do good,” not evil. They were full of good intentions. The Scriptural-minded know where that leads. . . .
Welcome to the new food wars. Perhaps we could sue schools for their menus? Oh, wait, we can’t sue The State. They can only push us around. The State grows and grows and we must shrink. Got it.
All this is dry run for food taxes on “sinful” foods to feed our overweight State. But people will still overeat or their bodies will retain weight (darn genetics, there ought to be a law!). So they tax the bodies. What’s next “fat camp” conscription? No elected officials who are overweight?
Even if this scheme “worked,” it gives new meaning to the old 19th century saying of peasants living under the Czar: “the State gets fatter and fatter while the people grow thinner and thinner.”
UPDATE: Critics accuse me of “fear mongering.” Let me be clear: in extreme cases, a doctor might have to intervene. But look at the food/obesity campaign — it is not simply an individual decision of a concerned doctor. They have made it a PUBLIC HEALTH “epidemic” requiring public action (proposals for food taxes and the like are de rigeur).
If the pooh-poohers honestly believe that this is only a concerned doctor caring about a rare case, then why the need for JAMA and to have it heard from someone (two someones) affiliated with Harvard School of Public Health?
FYI: I can’t reveal anything until the majority report (and possibly my dissenting report) emerge in the fall but US Commission on Civil Rights is going to receive a report on “food deserts” and obesity “epidemic.” If you don’t know “food deserts” get ready for the new “civil rights” issue of our time: FOOD!
But to allay your concerns about fear mongering:
My guess is that this part of anti-obesity authoritarianism will not come to pass (food taxes and the rest WILL). Why? Because the report to be received in the fall shows that African Americans are disproportionately “impacted.” Under the disparate impact doctrine, if a disproportionate number of super-obese children happened to be in a “protected class” (black Hispanic etc) than there would be lawsuits. So, it probably won’t happen — even in cases that you (and I) think might warrant it.
Here’s how left-wing radicals work: put up something extreme that will create a backlash (like this JAMA article has done) than push ahead with once-unthinkable measures that seem “moderate” by comparison. To wit:
Transfat bans and lawsuits:
http://www.bantransfats.com/ claims credit for CA law banning transfat and suing Kraft to get transfat out of Oreos. Nah, this will never happen—until it does.
Notice how they say they are not limiting ADULT choice, the suit was all about children —http://www.bantransfats.com/theoreocase.html—but removing transfat from Oreos (or anything else) by extensions does limit adult choice. Brilliant!
My state House voted to ban transfat but didn’t move forward in state senate during a tumultuous session over other issues. Expect passage within the year: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/13/illinois-house-passes-tra_n_848810.html
One of the JAMA coauthors is a lawyer. Expect more lawsuits. Journal articles—lawsuits—laws for “children only”—no more controversy. From fear to sheepish acceptance. And we will all shrug in a few years. “Oh, well, what harm does it do?”
Ten years ago, predicting such stuff was fear mongering—“oh, that’s only San Francisco or NY”—until it’s Illinois and corporations cave to lawsuits and . . . it’s a well-worn drill. If you haven’t learned the “rules for radicals,” you aren’t awake. Tocqueville’s fear of America blanked by a thousand minute regulations and citizens-turned-sheep will be here.
***
FURTHER READING:
An excellent new book by David Bernstein, summarizing his career’s work on the importance of individual freedom under the law and the dangers of Progressive jurisprudence:
Rehabilitating Lochner: Defending Individual Rights Against Progressive Reform (2011). Justice James Clark McReynolds was one of those crusty old classical liberals who fought with Progressive jurists like Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. On the issue of parental rights, he wrote the decision striking down a KKK-inspired law to ban all private and parochial schools (so that children could be “properly” schooled under State supervision). McReynolds wrote that “children are not mere creatures of the State.” (The state’s attorney in Oregon argued that they were “creatures of the State”).
Tags: American History, Family, Fascism, Food, Nanny State, Nationalism, Police 
Jonathan,
Wow! A little fear mongering on a Thursday afternoon. It seems that in light of the information in the article you cite you have taken some pretty large leaps to spread some crazed fear of “the government”.
One thing you need to contemplate is that medical professionals have a professional and legal obligation to identify and report what they consider to be child abuse, neglect, etc. (FYI these are the laws being referred to , not the wide spring you have made to the racial hygiene laws of the old South)
So, if severe underweight is an indicator of abuse/neglect why shouldn’t severe overweight also be an indicator. The doctors are not talking about having the state move chubby kids to foster care, only those who are morbidly obese.
Granted, I do not agree with the idea of having the state, or someone else for that matter take children away from parents. However, there are extreme cases where this is necessary. Thus, why shouldn’t we discuss morbid obesity in young children as such as extreme case?
I am also sure we could have this discussion without having to descend into fear mongering or disingenuous representations, as you seem to have done. This is the same fear mongering that seems to think educating kids about dietary and nutritional choices is some kid of soviet/communist/fascist/maoist/muslim/terrorist/socialist plot. I prefer to call dietary and nutritional education basic common sense, enabling kids and their parent to make better CHOICES in terms of how they feed themselves. You seem to think if a kid wants to eat McDonalds 3 times a day/seven days a week then none has the right to educate him or provide alternatives.
Shame on you.
Frank | Jul 14, 2011 | Reply
Do they remove anorexic girls from their homes?
Deborah | Jul 14, 2011 | Reply
Not leaps, just precedents and experience. Jacob Sullum wrote a book critical of public health crusaders (circa 1995). He opened with an anecdote about a person hectoring someone about smoking and all the rest. Then, he said, imagine if that person were overweight. Would he hector them? Of course not, we all presumed in 1995. Now we have the First Lady of the nation taking this up as an issue! And she is targeting “Food Deserts” for helping to make kids fat. Etc. Google the term and find out if you live in a food desert!
Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel just held a “summit” on food deserts and obesity.
And former GOP governor from Arkansas has made this a big issue.
Throw in the need for $$$ — and sin taxes are always popular — and this isn’t much of a leap, especially since the laws are already on the book.
And in the past, whether social hygienists said that critics were “fear mongering,” the draconian measures will only apply to extreme cases, problem drinkers or smokers, etc., etc. But it never works out that way.
More “extremism” in practice: the dentists lobby persuaded my state of Illinois that children MUST go to the dentist every six months or the schools must withhold their grades (what does one have to do with the other?). We do send our children to the dentist but we refused to hand over the documents. Now they are going further: they want not just a form certifying you are practicing “dental hygiene” but a printout of WHERE in your mouth you kid got cavities!
Fear mongering? Raise a kid in America 2011. I’m sure readers can add more. Of course, you can avoid all these problems by just not having kids (the same types are big on population control because it is a “public health” issue).
Jonathan Bean | Jul 14, 2011 | Reply
Correction: you must send your kids to the dentist TWICE a year (every six months, not two). That’s “reasonable.”
Jonathan Bean | Jul 14, 2011 | Reply
Frank,
Where did I say I was against education, alternatives, and the rest?
But child custody termination (or use in divorce proceedings) is NOT an alternative.
DISCLOSURE: I am on an advisory panel to the US Commission on Civil Rights and this week we read our draft report on “food deserts.” Should be interesting!
My guess is food taxes will be the first round. Also, employers don’t have to hire smokers because they add to the cost of business, etc. Look for the same with the overweight. Think this is a leap? Ask Alabama state workers:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26337794/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition/t/alabama-workers-pay-extra-pounds/
Jonathan Bean | Jul 14, 2011 | Reply
Doctors shouldn’t talk. Doctors write this crap, Doctors read this crap. Doctors try to JAMA it up our %$# . Meanwhile, these ‘healers’ KILL 100,000++ PEOPLE A YEAR ... MANY TIMES WHAT GUNS, KNIVES, CLUBS AND FISTS KILL YEARLY. Think I’m kidding? Look up, ‘Medical Misadventure’ Deaths or ‘Doctor caused Deaths’ or ‘Hospital Deaths’ etc., for yourself.
HINT: Don’t use (Trust) MD controlled publications.
Pasquale | Jul 15, 2011 | Reply
Oh yeah, Add ‘Doctors Prescription Deaths’ to the list.
Pasquale | Jul 15, 2011 | Reply
Overall, I’m not that worried about this. The focus is on children with BMIs well in excess of 50. Think of it this way, if you are 5’10″ tall to have a BMI of around 50 you’d have to weigh 350 pounds or so. 350 pounds is very, very overweight for an adult. For a child who is much smaller, the BMI is going to be much much higher. For example, the typical girl at 12 is around 60 inches tall, so here BMI would be 78 at 400 pounds.
The idea that this is going to lead to grabbing the pudgy kid from his parents is pretty far down a very slippery slope.
Depending on your height, your BMI was probably somewhere in the 50s, you would not have been one of the kids under discussion unless your weight was causing very serious–i.e. life threatening–problems. Most of the kids in that have been removed have much, much higher BMIs.
Still, removal from the home is very extreme and should be a last resort and only if the parents refuse to acknowledge the problem. So in your case it wouldn’t have been likely that you’d have been removed. Your parents would have agreed there was a problem as you say they did and would have likely continued to encourage you to lose weight.
Steve Verdon | Jul 15, 2011 | Reply
Too far down the slippery slope? Start with divorce custody — millions of cases and all sorts of issues turn custody one way or the other.
Jonathan Bean | Jul 16, 2011 | Reply
Jonathan,
My point was that the level of fear mongering you are using to present this, is quite similar to the level of fear mongering that those who wish, for example, to ban happy meals in some cities use. I also think the hubub around the First Lady on this is silly. I do not recall this much animosity toward the previous first lady we advocating more reading for kids instead of video games?
My question to you, which you did not answer, was if medical professional are required by law to make judgements on potentail child abuse/neglect. Is it reasonable to assume that excessive obesity should be considered such as indicator?
Also, I think it is a bit of a strawman to equate this with divorce custody, as in many cases those proceedings have as much to due with the animosity between the parents as they due with custody issues, and generally speaking the government doesn’t act on its own, but rather a court at the request of said divorcing parents acts as the arbitor.
Instead let’s equate this with what a nurse or doctor should do if he finds evidence of physical abuse, brusing, sexual indicators, etc. Are you suggesting it is bad for them to ignore these and the those children stay in that environment? Thus my question. In such extreme cases do we as a society have an obligation to protect those who cannot protect themselves? Or do we say, gee this is a free country and everyone has right, including abusive parents, and the kids, well the state has no business interfering with the family?
So back to my question. If a parent simply ignores the health and well being of their child by refusing to adequately feed them or education them on nutirion, then should a doctor/nurse step in and alert the authorities to miove the child to a foster family that is willing to take on that parenting responsibility and offer that child a healthy environment?
This, if you can step back from the fear mongering for a moment and think it through in a more reasonable manner, maybe you would sound like you all parents, including sexually abusive parents, to have free reign with kids.
Frank | Jul 16, 2011 | Reply
Frank,
I’ll answer your question: in extreme cases, a doctor might have to intervene. But look at the food/obesity campaign — it isn’t simply an individual decision of a concerned doctor. They have made it a PUBLIC HEALTH “epidemic” requiring public action (proposals for food taxes and the like are de rigeur).
If you honestly believe that this is only a concerned doctor caring about a rare case, then why the need for JAMA and to have it heard from someone (two someones) affiliated with Harvard School of Public Health?
If this is only for extreme cases why is it taking up increasing space in JAMA and, more important, public health journals?
FYI: I can’t reveal anything until the majority report (and possibly my dissenting report) emerge in the fall but US Commission on Civil Rights is going to receive a report on “food deserts” and obesity “epidemic.”
You see it as a concerned doctor, I see it – given the way the other side frames it – as part of a public health mentality.
**But to allay your concerns about fear mongering:
My guess is that this part of anti-obesity authoritarianism will not come to pass (food taxes and the rest WILL). Why? Because the report to be received in the fall shows that African Americans are disproportionately “impacted.” Under the disparate impact doctrine, if a disproportionate number of super-obese children happened to be in a “protected class” (black Hispanic etc) than there would be lawsuits. So, Frank, it probably won’t happen — even in cases that you (and I) think might warrant it.
I’m curious, though: Frank, what do you think of the dental law requiring us to show where our kids get cavities or our children don’t get grades? To mention it sounds like “fear mongering” but the vote for the act was UNANIMOUS. No one will vote against anything wrapped in children. We kept our kids out of government schools as long as possible (school choice is limited here) but now we are under the whip of these reporting requirements and my daughter has to go to college so . . . ‘fess up the cavities!
Here’s how left-wing radicals work: put up something extreme that will create a backlash (like this JAMA article has done) than push ahead with once-unthinkable measures that seem “moderate” by comparison. To wit:
***
Don’t forget the transfat bans and lawsuits:
http://www.bantransfats.com/ — claims credit for CA law banning transfat and suing Kraft to get transfat out of Oreos. Nah, this will never happen — until it does.
Notice how they say they are not limiting ADULT choice, the suit was all about children — http://www.bantransfats.com/theoreocase.html — but removing transfat from Oreos (or anything else) by extensions does limit adult choice. Brilliant!
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jul/26/local/me-transfat26
My state House voted to ban transfat but didn’t move forward in state senate during a tumultuous session over other issues. Expect passage within the year: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/13/illinois-house-passes-tra_n_848810.html
One of the JAMA coauthors is a lawyer. Expect more lawsuits. Journal articles – lawsuits – laws for “children only” – no more controversy. From fear to sheepish acceptance. And we will all shrug in a few years. “Oh, well, what harm does it do?”
10 years ago, predicting such stuff was fear mongering — “oh, that’s only San Francisco or NY” — until it’s Illinois and corporations cave to lawsuits and . . . it’s a well-worn drill.
Jonathan Bean | Jul 16, 2011 | Reply
Previous First Lady “reading for kids instead of video games?”
Ha, ha. And look at how video games became an issue before the Supreme Court!
In today’s America, everything is political.
Jonathan Bean | Jul 16, 2011 | Reply
To: Steve Verdon,
You follow the ‘progressive’ rhetorical script and the playbook very well. You must win the debate at any cost. To this end, it seems, duplicity, obfuscation and distortion are the major ‘tools’ in use.
In your first paragraph you attempt to, ‘dazzle them with statistics’ thereby ‘establishing’ your pseudo-credentials on the matter under debate. You do this all the time knowing your ‘progressive’ argument is, as usual, complete ‘bull-crap.’
Hopefully, having dazzled your opponent, you in your second paragraph make a statement that would seem to be at least partially acceptable to your opponent. This is used to confuse and misdirect your opponent.
That accomplished, in your third paragraph you now attempt to make your opponent partially agree with you on some tangential argument or, as in this case, to elicit some emotional response positive to you. In this case, sympathy for you as a child, is the clever device.
Now, and hopefully with your opponent completely off balance, your forth paragraph is used as a kind of ‘banderillas’, the short spear a matador uses bleed and weaken the bull before he goes in for the ‘kill’ with his long sword. This is done by making light of or diminishing the negative ramifications and/or true scope of the ACTUAL GOAL of your ‘progressive’ argument.
Now, in your fifth and final paragraph, with your opponent hopefully dazzled, confused, misdirected, emotionally split and weakened, you set up the thrust into the heart of your opponent’s counter-argument … But now you must be careful. This is the most difficult part for you as you cannot avoid revealing, at least in some measure, those “the negative ramifications and/or true scope of the ACTUAL GOAL of your ‘progressive’ argument.” Those terribly damaging aspects of your argument must be camouflaged by marginalizing the deplorable effects of implementation and qualifying or lessening the draconian nature of those dictates and rules by which the ACTUAL GOAL will be attained. You must use ‘softening’ words and phrases such as, “should be”, “only if” and “likely”. These are intentionally ‘fuzzy’ words whose real and actual meaning is not defined. These words are used proximate to phrases such as, “removal from the home”, “if the parents refuse to acknowledge” and “you’d have been removed.” This is your attempt to ‘sugar coat’, ‘soften’ and make ‘fuzzy’ the horrific and reprehensible nature of those phrases.
It is your plan that the above deceptions will hide the long standing ‘progressive’ ACTUAL GOAL, which is, the DESTRUCTION OF THE FAMILY UNIT AS THE PRIME SOCIETAL GROUP. ‘Progressives’ will proffer, foster, and support ANYTHING that will make even small inroads towards the destruction of the BONDED family unit AND facilitate the REPLACEMENT of those family bonds with the eventual BONDAGE of STATE CONTROL.
I notice there are NO ‘MIDDLE STEP’ options offered by you. Steps such as: HOME visits by a healthcare worker. Why not? – Referral to a medical specialist. Why not? – Referral to a behavior modification specialist. Why not? – Referral to a mental health specialist. Why not? – Group sessions. Why not? Because helping these children is not a concern. Your concern is success in attaining the GOAL.
Nope. BANG! You’d have some officious STRANGER from some STATE or FEDERAL GOVERNMENT BUREAUCRACY as the only option. Some stranger who will decide the fate of these families and these children. Who will be this stranger? Most likely, someone who thinks there are NO BOUNDS as to where, when and how much GOVERNMENT can intrude into and CONTROL EVERY ASPECT OF OUR LIVES ... for our own good of course and the Constitution be damned!
I will venture they will be someone who believes as you seem to do.
Pasquale | Jul 17, 2011 | Reply
Pasquale:
You ought to be a blogger! (If you aren’t already).
Steve Verdon:
Do a google search of obesity epidemic. When something becomes an “epidemic,” it’s time for them to bring in the lawyers (see the successful transfat suit against Kraft), follow with law (see CA, Illinois House, more). This has ALREADY happened.
If you don’t think there is a food war going on, then wake up. They are leaping to food taxes, determining the ratio of fast food chains and “healthy” restaurants (zoning), and much more.
I was not the only one to respond to JAMA — again search Google News — there was a tremendous backlash. The difference is that the public health crusaders want a backlash over something ‘unobjectionable’ like a doctor caring about an “extreme” case.
Again, I will have a full report and/or op-ed documenting this in a certain Midwestern state and nationwide. Stay tuned this Fall. It’s already under way and let’s hope we “freedom types” understand (by now) how these social control movements operate. It doesn’t pay to be right after the fact when Americans have shrugged their shoulders and go back to texting their body on Facebook. . .
Jonathan Bean | Jul 17, 2011 | Reply