Dr. Michael Fitzpatrick, a general practitioner in London and the author of The Tyranny of Health: Doctors and the Regulation of Lifestyle, writes in the current issue of the British Journal of General Practice that child obesity is not a form of child abuse or an issue for child protection authorities. Tam Fry, a spokesperson for the National Obesity Forum, however, is continuing his calls for fat children to be taken into state care.
This debate has been going on for more than a year, but the Local Government Association resumed warnings today that the growing epidemic of childhood obesity necessitates drastic action by the government.
Apart from anything else, it’s far from clear to what extent fatness is dietary and to what extent it’s genetic. Certainly it’s hard to find significant correlations between childhood diet and obesity.
But that kind of argument is their chosen battlefield. The real reason to oppose this is that abducting other people’s children is not the job of government, whatever the excuse. The legal system can deal with violent people, and families and charitable people can look after children.
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