Too Fat to Adopt a child
Posted by propinecone on Jan 14, 2009 · Member since May 2007 · 2842 posts
i saw this couple interviewed on the news the other night. i'm torn.. i see that they are probably nice people and while the news mainly said the excuse was that the are more likely to have health problems that the child would have to deal with, i see it more as they are more likely to raise a child that also has unhealthy eating patterns too.
http://www.exploringadoptionblog.com/adoption/2009/01/british-couple-declared-too-fat-to-adopt.html
go!
It seems like this is not just about the kid learning dysfunctional eating habits, but about obesity being like an illness. I guess as far as the agency is concerned, it's like letting a (potentially) terminally ill person adopt a child, with the potential for the parent dying before the child matures. They wouldn't want to willingly put the kid through that, but I think it would be best to more thoroughly evaluate the situation.
Also, I'm not really sure that something is always better than nothing in the case of foster care (I'm sure an obese parent is better than nothing, though). My childhood best friend spent years in foster care in terrible, abusive homes. The reason why many kids wind up in foster care is because something nothing is better than whatever fate handed them. Still, I can't say for my friend that she would have been better off with no adoptive families at all.
Those are all good points, fb.
It's really hard to say. It seems like a case-to-case thing, but at the same time it seems very difficult to assess accurately--that is, to assess how the parents' being obese will impact the child. Hmmmm.
I'm technically considered obese for my height, but I eat really healthy stuff and I exercise regularly. just can't lose weight . If someone tells me i can't adopt a child when I'm ready, just because I'm not Kate Moss , I'll punch them in their f**king face.
Fat does not equal unhealthy.
Skinny does not equal healthy.
As a matter of fact, many people considered "overweight" and "obese" who end up getting things like diabetes, get them because they are denied health insurance because of their weight....thus they aren't able to get preventative treatments, adequate health care, etc.
Some people think their opinions are law and it doesn't work that way. The parents have a ton of rights to. I think they should be allowed to adopt the child. They have every right to.
I personally believe that any married couple that wants to, and can make and produce children should go through the same hurdles, and meet the same requirements as any couple that wishes to adopt. If that ever happened, the adoption laws would change very quickly
yeah i agree lubi - i know people who are totally thin and eat pretty healthily but then feed their kids pretty crappy cus the kids act picky and the parents don't push them enough to try new things. it drives me nuts!
:-X
My parents do that with my youngest sister who is becomming very overweight. She eats a very meat-centric diet and barely exercises. I tried talking to them about her diet and taught my sister to ride a bike this summer. But to no avail, I am the crazy vegan in the family so nobody listens to me. :pirate:
Um? I clicked the link and I landed in some weird Christian adoption thing. Nothing about overweight parents. I'm really interesting in checking this out. What gives?
For international adoptions, quite a few countries have weight restrictions on how heavy an adoptive parent can be. I do think it's discriminatory and I personally think that a loving home with a heavier parent has got to be better than being stuck in a cycle of foster care, etc. Neither of my parents are overweight, but my sister is obese, so what does it tell you?
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