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Should childhood obesity be considered child abuse?

One social media user asked the question: “Why isn’t childhood obesity considered child abuse?” And the internet reacted...

A massive online debate has been sparked after a social media user asked the question: “Why isn’t childhood obesity considered child abuse?”

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In an explosive Reddit thread, users of the social news aggregation site were quick to weigh in on the sensitive argument.

Responses ranged from agreeing childhood obesity was a form of “abuse”, to shooting down the idea, with one person stating, “the law doesn’t require people to be perfect parents”.

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This isn’t the first time the childhood obesity-child abuse argument has been talked about.

In Australia, the The Age revealed that Victorian welfare authorities were using “extreme obesity” as a means of removing kids from the care of their parents.

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Their investigation refers to two children separated from their parents by the Department of Human Services, citing obesity within each of their child protection cases.

And experts – like Tim Gill, who is the associate professor of Sydney University’s Boden Institute of Obesity, Nutrition, Exercise and Eating – predict that we are likely to see more and more of the cases crop up.

”We are going to see more children in that [extreme] weight category and in some ways, yes, it’s a failure of parents,” Mr Gill told The Age.

“But it also reflects a failure of society – that we could create a circumstance that would allow and encourage kids to overeat and under-exercise to such an extent that they get to that weight.”

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In New Zealand, the Ministry of Health’s Annual Update of Key Results 2014/15: New Zealand Health Survey found that one in nine children aged between 2 and14 years old were obese, and a further 22 per cent of children were overweight.

The Ministry released a Childhood Obesity Plan in July, which aimed that “95 per cent of obese children identified in the Before School Check (B4SC) programme will be offered a referral to a health professional for clinical assessment and family based nutrition, activity and lifestyle interventions” by December 2017.

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