Overweight
Mother of Overweight Son Reacts to Obesity Campaign
In August, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta began a billboard and television ads to raise awareness about childhood obesity, modeled after a successful anti-meth campaign. However, some health officials are concerned that the images and text in these ads are unnecessarily aggressive, and add to the stigma overweight children already face. In addition to sparking a month-long online protest […]
Public Debate Over a Controversial Childhood Obesity Campaign
Approximately one-third of adults and 17 percent of children in the U.S. are obese. While this public health crisis has spawned a billion dollar diet industry, reality shows dedicated to weight loss, and the First Lady’s “Let’s Move” program, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta didn’t think these were enough to discourage children from making unhealthy choices. […]
Flash Forward: Childhood Obesity and the Future of School Lunches
A 2011 University of Michigan study of more than a thousand middle school students found that those who regularly ate school lunches were 29 percent more likely to be obese than those who brought lunch from home. Of course, what a child eats for lunch is just one of many factors that determines whether he […]
Should Obese Children Be Removed From Their Homes?
In Cleveland, Ohio an 8-year-old boy was removed from his home on the grounds that his severe obesity was the fault of his parental care. The young boy weighed over 200 pounds. For comparison, the average weight of an 8-year-old boy is about 60 pounds. The question isn’t whether the boy was overweight, or whether his […]
