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7 year-old girl weighs 400 pounds: child abuse?
Categories: Just For Moms, Kids 5-7, Just For Dads, Health & Safety, Media
The epidemic of child obesity in North America has been devoured and spit out by the media a million and thirty two times. We already know that so many of our kids eat too much and play too little. It's easy to offer a black and white opinion, like I have in past: it's up to us as parents to feed our kids healthy meals and make sure they get their exercise. Let's do it.
It's easy to say, in theory, and it's simple to retain a vague view of kids affected by severe obesity. They are other people's kids, often, not our problem. But when you see it close up, in living colour, it's often hard to feel that lofty idealism and not feel heartbroken for the child.
I came across a video last night of a 400-pound 7-year old girl. When I read the title, I clicked on the link with hesitant suspicion. Is that even possible?
Sadly, it is. 7-year old Jessica weighs 400 pounds and is so obscenely overweight that she needs to scoot rather than walk, and has difficulty breathing when she talks. The footage is stunning, and as I watched the hurting little girl ask for popcorn even as her desperation breathed through every pore, my heart plummeted. How does this happen?
In the comments section of the video, you'll see some cruel comments, and many proclamations of blame. Some say Jessica's obesity is child abuse, inflicted by her parents. The video doesn't go into details, but it does say that Jessica is now under medical supervision and struggling to lose some weight.
Frankly, I do believe this is child abuse. The girl is seven years old and her parents are wholly responsible for monitoring what she eats. At seven, Jessica is incapable of making her own healthy decisions. What do you think?
It's easy to say, in theory, and it's simple to retain a vague view of kids affected by severe obesity. They are other people's kids, often, not our problem. But when you see it close up, in living colour, it's often hard to feel that lofty idealism and not feel heartbroken for the child.
I came across a video last night of a 400-pound 7-year old girl. When I read the title, I clicked on the link with hesitant suspicion. Is that even possible?
Sadly, it is. 7-year old Jessica weighs 400 pounds and is so obscenely overweight that she needs to scoot rather than walk, and has difficulty breathing when she talks. The footage is stunning, and as I watched the hurting little girl ask for popcorn even as her desperation breathed through every pore, my heart plummeted. How does this happen?
In the comments section of the video, you'll see some cruel comments, and many proclamations of blame. Some say Jessica's obesity is child abuse, inflicted by her parents. The video doesn't go into details, but it does say that Jessica is now under medical supervision and struggling to lose some weight.
Frankly, I do believe this is child abuse. The girl is seven years old and her parents are wholly responsible for monitoring what she eats. At seven, Jessica is incapable of making her own healthy decisions. What do you think?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Clarissa 5-05-2007 @ 8:57AM
I think it depends on the circumstances. If the child is obese due to a medical condition then it wouldn't be child abuse. If on the other hand it's because the parents feed her any and everything she wants...then yest absolutly it's child abuse.
As parents it is up to us to our foot down and say NO you have had enough. Or No you arn't getting any candy, cake....etc
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Erika 5-05-2007 @ 9:56AM
This child obviously has a medical condition. The report indicates she gained 200 pounds in about 2 years. Clearly, her doctors should have taken more action earlier, but I don't see evidence of abuse. Her parents have sought medical help for her -- what more can they do? There are a number of metabolic syndromes that cause people to massively overeat, and or to gain phenomenal amounts of weight even on a relatively normal diet. The calorie theory of weight gain simply is not accurate.
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Anji 5-05-2007 @ 10:13AM
The video you're linking to is two years old! She is now nine years old and weighs less than 150lb. The story can be found here:
http://www.flicklife.com/9ff0e5d1176244fdfb65/UPDATE_400_pound_7_year_old_Jessica.html
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Miss 5-05-2007 @ 12:26PM
Erika - I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that "the calorie theory of weight gain simply is not accurate" While several metabolic disorders have been discovered as a culprit for overweight or obesity, these disorders cause the sufferer to consume more CALORIES than they would otherwise want or need. It is the disorder itself which contributes to increased calorie consumption, so the calori theory of weight gain is still entirely accurate. Indeed, I have never heard of a scientist declaring that calories may NOT matter with regard to weight gain.
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Ethel 5-05-2007 @ 11:02PM
Damn Miss, not you again! There are disorders where the child would consume far less calories then is normal, and even would normally create weight loss for a given weight. MOMO and Prader-Willi come to mind as easy examples, although with MOMO the child does not have an excessive hunger while with Prader-Willi the great hunger is coupled with a very low metabolism.
But Jessica has nothing fundamentally wrong with her. I do think that appearing on Maury Pauvich's show when she was like 2 created attention for her mom and perhaps some income.
All in all this is just sad that a child would get so ill simply becuase they are not fed correctly. Such a simple solution, and yet seemingly so hard to take on. Her legs are bowed from her weight, probably permanently, she has so much skin that I don't think she could ever grow into it. Terrible terrible.
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SKL 5-06-2007 @ 12:20AM
I agree that this child certainly has a medical disorder. Most kids could not get that overweight even if they tried. Even the most overindulged kids will stop eating naturally at some point, unless they have a medical disorder. Otherwise there would be a lot more 400-pound kids out there, since there are a lot of parents who make no attempt to control their kids' diets. (And many of these kids are skinny.)
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