I blogged last week about the 200-pound eight-year-old who was removed from his mom in Cleveland and sent into foster care. Seems that it's not only in the US that public health officials are removing children from families who let them become too overweight. Here's an article about a five-year-old from Tameside, Greater Manchester, UK, removed from home for similar reasons; this child appears to be the youngest, but is by no means the first, to be seized from parents by UK health officials by reason of obesity.
Art Caplan has of course commented, and I have to agree: "You don't take someone out of the house and away from their parents unless they have an immediate risk of death."
Is foster care really a less expensive and more effective option than offering counseling and assistance to the child's parents?
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