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An 8-year-old Cleveland Heights boy was taken from his family and placed in foster care last month after county case workers said his mother wasn’t doing enough to control his weight, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports.
At more than 200 pounds, the third-grader is considered severely obese and at risk for developing such diseases as diabetes and hypertension.
But even though the state health department estimates more than 12 percent of third-graders statewide are severely obese this is the first time anyone in the county or the state can recall a child being taken from a parent for a strictly weight-related issue.
The case plays into an emerging national debate that has some urging social-service agencies to step in when parents have failed to address a weight problem.
Others suggest there’s hypocrisy in a government that would advocate taking children away for being overweight while saying it’s OK to advertise unhealthy food and put toys in fast-food kids’ meals.
Cuyahoga County does not have a specific policy on dealing with obese children. It removed the boy because case workers considered this mother’s inability to get her son’s weight down a form of medical neglect, said Mary Louise Madigan, a spokesperson for the Department of Children and Family Services.
They said that the child’s weight gain was caused by his environment and that the mother wasn’t following doctor’s orders — which she disputes.
The mother said that social workers took her son from his school on Oct. 19 and told her she could see him only once a week for two hours. The boy is living in a foster home.
Next month, the two sides will debate the case in front of a Juvenile Court magistrate, who will decide what is in the boy’s best interest. A trial is set on the child’s 9th birthday.