A Big, Fat Moral Question

Above are some of my favorite things--cheeseburgers, cupcakes and fries. Add a coke and you've got a yummy, yummy meal.

Of course, you've also got a meal that's not very good for me. If I eat it anyway, then I'm responsible for the heartburn and fat-ass-itis that goes along with it.

But, if I'm a little girl and someone else feeds it to me, then who's responsible for the health effects?

When I was at the grocery store the other day, I saw a girl who must have been 8 or 9 years old and about 4-foot-6. And she was wearing a women's size 16 jean (the tag was sticking out and I could see it), and even though it was the petite cut, the cuffs were folded up inside and pinned just below her knees.

This little girl probably weighed about 200 pounds, and hadn't even hit puberty yet.

But the story gets worse: She was shopping with her mom, who probably had a $300 hair weave. She was snacking on this vile-smelling microwave pizza they were giving away. In her mother's full grocery cart there was frozen pizzas, heat-and-serve dinners, lunch box-sized bags of chips, frozen burritos, and 2-liter bottles of root beer, orangeade and fruit punch--except that the orangeade and fruit punch were the soda kind that contain no actual fruit juice (and says it on the bottle).

There were no vegetables, no fruit, no fresh meats, and no juice. Only high fat, high sodium, high sugar instant foods.

The mom was heavy herself, so you could say that genetics has a role in the fact that the little girl was fat, but if that shopping cart is indicative of the diet they eat, that ain't helpin'.

Now, 200 pounds at my height is considered obese, so I can imagine that at the girl's size it's at least obese, if not morbidly obese. And her mother isn't doing anything to make her less so.

While I hope this little girl is healthy, what would happen if she wasn't. If she develops diabetes, high blood pressure or has a heart attack, whose fault is it--and will a mother who's not smart enough to give her child juice with juice in it know it's her fault? Is letting your child get that fat a form of child abuse? Should the little girl, for her own protection, be removed from her mother's care and be placed with someone who will take better care of her health?