UK 'Expert' Calls for Removing Fat Kids from Homes
Even though he realizes his opinion is unpopular (never mind "wrong", "bullheaded", "ignorant", "stupid", et al), Tam Fry of the National Obesity Forum's board in the UK has decided that fat kids should be removed from their homes against their will and in some cases be forced to have their stomachs stapled.
Mr Fry said: "My point will be that we regard malnourished children as being abused and so with those children who are so overweight, either consciously or by neglect because their parents allow it, there should be a case for them being removed from their parents to a paediatric ward and put under weight management by doctors."
Again, Fry feels he'll be defeated when the issue comes up for debate at the Forum's annual conference tomorrow. But the fact that he can float this idea at all in any context and be taken seriously should serve as a wake-up call for people who feel that this issue is overblown or exaggerated by us "angry" fat people.
To show Fry's ignorance, I offer this quote from the article regarding parents of the children who would be in these "correction" camps:
"The parents will be permitted access but they will be frisked for chocolate and fizzy drinks when they enter the ward."
Clearly, all parents do is give their kids chocolate (sugar!) and soda (more sugar!) in order for them to be fat. Why, it's so simple really: instead of ensuring that these kids might actually feel good about their bodies and well-being, let's instead ship them off to camps where they'll be subject to "treatment" and having permanent, doctor-approved damage done to their internal organs. All in the name of trying to avoid fat.
Part of the problem here, as with any argument that falls into this court, is that there's simply no convincing evidence provided by Fry that this is really necessary. The burden of proof has been totally removed from people who are anti-fat and has been shifted to those of us who are for fat rights and equality. Did you ever wonder why that is? Why Fry can get away with these statements without even citing a study? I mean, that would at least give us something to pick apart and consider on its own merits.
Instead we have an ignorant, ignorant opinion that is out there in the public sphere and doing nothing but damage. I mean, fat kids in the UK are already placed on an "at risk" (for what?) list and already could and have been removed from homes. Fry just wants to up the ante and make fat = abuse.
"For the sake of the children it does need to be done because we have got children who are horrendously fat."
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome our latest modifier for fat... "horrendously!" And of course it's FOR THE SAKE OF THE CHILDREN! We have to do it for the children! Now! Urgent! Kids! Stuff! Things! Staple their stomachs! Fixed! Children!
"I fully expect to be defeated in the debate. I go into it knowing that the prospect of removing children from their parents is something that the medical profession will shy away from."
You want to talk about abuse, Mr. Fry? Taking kids from their homes - that's abuse. [Thanks, Beanietude.]
Toronto Star Advice Columnist Ellie Preaches Acceptance | Hotel Charging Fat Kids More for Meals
Posted by paul on October 6, 2008
Fry says kids who are malnourished are abused, so he wants to take fat kids away from their parents, staple their stomachs (or some other WLS) and turn them into malnourished kids. Who's doing the abuse here? All the complications of WLS are better than being fat? What an asshat dickwad fucking jerk. If he thinks WLS is so damned great, he should try it and see just how well it works to make people thin and healthy. Here's a big FUCK YOU to Tam Fry, who doesn't have a freaking clue WTF he's talking about.
WLS - Sorry, not my preferred way of dying. *glares at doctor recommending it*
What I'd like to know is, considering that "fat" is applied to anyone over a size 8 these days, how big are these children he wants to be taken away and forced into so-called "wellness" camps? Of course, that really shouldn't matter, as nobody has the right to be judged due to their size, but when people scream about the obesity epidemic, they forget that thanks to the BMI being shifted, tons of people who were not even fat to begin with are suddenly being labeled as overweight, obese, and oh-my-god-you-should-be-dead-by-now. When so many people in society have such a twisted view of fat people, do we really need Tam Fry and his ilk doing this crap? And why does he think that shaming fat children and their families is a good idea in the first place? Unless those fat kids are suffering real, serious abuse, he needs to leave them alone and actually deal with real world problems. Not the size of a 10 year-old's waist.
I've little to add to this topic that hasn't already been discussed at length on the Forums other than to agree with Vesta44 that Tam Fry (and his fellow NOF board members Dr Colin Waine and Dr David Haslam) is a repugnant excuse for a human being, whose depth of contempt for fat people is matched only by his hunger for any headline whatsoever that helps maintain the momentum of the OMGobesitycrisis and keep him and others of his ilk in (extremely well-paid) jobs.
To give some idea of the implications of what's being suggested, Britain's 'care' system is one of the worst in the civilised world. Run on a shoestring by a hotch-potch of local authorities that have far more important things to do with our money, it adds very little value to the lives of its charges, of whom about three-quarters are booted out at 16 without qualifications, a stable home or most importantly, any experience whatsoever of adult love. So-called 'looked-after children' are disproportionately represented in prisons and as users of drug, homelessness and mental health services.
Until now I have been prepared to concede that even this chronic institutional failure has to be marginally better than the type of dysfunctional households where kids are beaten, abused, neglected and even on occasion killed by their natural parents. But when a major public figure such as Tam Fry, someone who seems to have the BBC, the Government and the BMA in his thrall, seriously proposes the mass removal of children from homes which are loving and supportive, where the child is under no immediate threat of harm and where exposure to local authority care / fat camps could severely threaten the child's emotional, educational and psychological progress and with it their entire future, there is clearly something frighteningly wrong with our hysteria-gripped medical establishment and the low value it places on the individual rights of larger people in its desire to 'set examples' and 'send warnings'.
Given that the Local Government Authority have already called for similar measures a couple of months back, that many social services departments and PCTs are already drawing up lists of obese children and even taking them into care if they don't comply with local weight-loss initiatives, and that there are rumours that the Government will combine their National Child Measurement Programme with the ContactPoint (or 'baby NIR') social services database to create a national register of obese children, this really isn't as far-fetched as it might initially sound to American ears.
What it is however is an affront to a British person's right, enshrined in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, to 'respect for private and family life' without Government interference. I will be writing to the National Obesity Forum to give them my opinions, supported by EVIDENCE (you know, that thing which according to the NOF can be bought with an £8000 grant from WW), and I can only urge that everyone, wherever in the world you may be, please do the same. Fat people in Britain, as you may be aware, have nothing by way of an organised fat activist movement, and are hence largely powerless to meaningfully oppose this trend toward the criminalisation of fat in what are shaping up to be very dark times indeed.
"if you think fat people have no self-discipline, consider the fact that they haven’t killed you yet." - Miss Conduct, Boston Globe
Here's the thing with kids. (and anyone who has kids knows this) Kids get pudgy. Then they get taller. Then they're beanpoles. Then they get pudgy again. Then they get taller again.
This whole thing pisses me off beyond words. How many children are going to end up irrevocably damaged, metabolically, physically, emotionally, simply because people are panicked because some of them look OMGFAT sometimes. Depriving growing bodies (and brains!) of vital nutrients and fat is a very , very bad idea.
I wonder what happened to Tam's mum when she was pregnant with him. Maybe he got the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck the whole time and ended up losing too many brain cells.
I've had a look at NOF's website (www.nationalobesityforum.org.uk) to see when this shindig is. Unfortunately, it's going on today and tomorrow. So here's what I'm thinking for next year's offering... we picket outside the venue. Placards, chanting, the works. Anyone, fat or thin, is welcome. I'm game if anyone else is! It may not be much, but it's a start... and we have a whole year to organise the hell out ourselves.
I believe they're based out of my alma mater in Nottingham, which is easy enough for me to get to. Only problem being that this time next year (and assuming we can afford one) I may well be on my honeymoon! My attendence therefore depends on how much of a movable feast this conference is; also I believe that after the opposition to the invasion of Iraq, you have to obtain a license from the local police now to hold many types of political protest in Britain (thanks Labour). But yes, the above notwithstanding I would jump at the chance to actually, y'know, DO something. MI5 watch-list, here I come
"if you think fat people have no self-discipline, consider the fact that they haven’t killed you yet." - Miss Conduct, Boston Globe
I these these slime balls (and there is no other way to describe them, they are sub human) do this to inspire fear because they want to push their agenda. Really little difference between that and our congressmen who were threatened with marshall law if they didn't pass the bailout. But, in the end, look at how the worm is turning!!! The slime who profit of weight stigma will get theirs too! There is NO cheating karma!!!
As has been asked before, is this perhaps part of the "setting the extreme with Y so X will seem moderate" strategy that we have seen here in the US?
Oh my God. I have no words, literally. I am horrified beyond coherent speech. I just hope that everyone who has a fat kid in the UK just grab his/her son or daughter and flees, should this idea ever become reality. You can't replace a job, a house, possessions, anything, but you can't replace a human being. If this ever passes, some of those kids will die, either from WLS complications, or malnutrition, or suicide, or injuries from escape attempts from those camps. Plus, no human being should be subjected to such treatment, ever, even if they do survive. The consequences just don't go away and have to be dealt with for a lifetime.
Obviously it should read "You can replace a job" etc. etc. Sorry but I was too upset while I typed to notice.
Count me in, UK-based fat people! I'm more than happy to picket next year.
Scary. So very scary.
I can totally see some British kids developing eating disorders over "Must lose weight or they'll take me away." Or disordered parents threatening their kids with that. Bleah. How many years before they need "camps" to deal with the anorexic, bulimic, and orthorexic kids?
And he's at it again tonight, calling for 'draconian interventions' in this BBC piece about the Local Government Association's warning (itself re-hashed old news from back in August) that they intend to reduce the costs to the council taxpayer through the mass removal of fat children from their homes. This man, funded by Big Pharma / Big Diet and hiding behind a veneer of phoney scientific credibility, is an absolute menace to every fat person in Britain, and I fear that no amount of letter-writing or picketing will sway the opinions of such a misguided zealot.
"if you think fat people have no self-discipline, consider the fact that they haven’t killed you yet." - Miss Conduct, Boston Globe
Richie, I just clicked on the first link you posted. By the standards cited in that article, I have always been obese, even when I was in high school and weighed 125 pounds (I am 5'5 1/2" tall). They went on the OMG-you-can-be-of-normal-weight-and-still-be-obese-if-you-have-body-fat! kick.
What a bunch of morons.
Conscious as I am of posting too often to this thread, I thought people may be interested in a segment from BBC Radio 2's Jeremy Vine show (linked from this Spiked article), where Tam Fry and Spiked deputy editor Rob Lyons (himself a fat guy) debate the issue. Click on the YouTube box and have a listen to the piece, which aired last night. My thoughts? Fry's comments about parents and kids 'welcoming' state intervention as an 'escape route' for obese children who are 'suffering' at home infuriated me. On the other hand his fantasies of universal testing for an 'obesity gene' in utero, and eventually neutralising it (and with it the obesity epidemic) 'within five or ten years' are frankly chilling.
"if you think fat people have no self-discipline, consider the fact that they haven’t killed you yet." - Miss Conduct, Boston Globe
Soooo... we abort the potentially fat fetus? Seriously? Did somebody say Adolph? Can NO ONE see the similarities?
Will there be parents — British, American, whatever — willing to fight to the death for their children? I had a not so nice childhood — I played with the idea of suicide starting at 12. Had I been forced into a state-sponsored "fat camp," my playing with would have turned into the real thing.
I guess I'm glad I'm 48 and diabetic, 'cause I probably won't be around when the camps open full scale, "buses leaving hourly, you must be on one by noon tomorrow."
not too mention - how many of these children will die because they were forced into being butchered? We know that an inordinate amount of adults die from allowing their anatomy to be mutilated by WLS. These kids aren't even finished growing... so what happens when they develop medical health issues because their body was not allowed to function properly through childhood at the very least??? this is NEVER a surgery that should be done on children, and I mean anyone under the age of 18...
My son is 15 years old and wears a 4X. I know I am not the best mother in the world, and he is not the happiest kid either, since we both have psychological problems, but . . . . would taking him away from me solve anything? I am getting panicky just thinking of the possibility. Having him taken away would absolutely devastate my entire family. It would be something my son would never get over. Of course, I would do anything to keep him from being taken away, I guess nutritional counseling or whatever, although I think I know all about that stuff anyway. I also have a daughter who is of average weight and my husband is very thin. My son just takes after my side of the family. Well, I guess if the people thinking of taking kids from their families want to scare us, boy they have.