“Notes from a Healer” — It ain’t over ’til the fat kid sings

The TV personality is interviewing a couple as they prepare to perform on the televised British talent show. The girl is thin, articulate, good-looking. The boy, her partner, is morbidly obese, with long curly hair. He fidgets with his hand-held microphone. more»

My latest installment of Notes from a Healer — It ain’t over ’til the fat kid sings — is now online, newly published in the Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine.

The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine is an online journal fostering discussion about the culture of medicine, medical care, and experiences of illness. Interested readers can access a list of editorial board members and regular contributors here.

Trimming the fat of the land

In their recent JAMA commentary on the problem of malignant childhood obesity (State Intervention in Life-Threatening Childhood Obesity, JAMA, July 13, 2011: Vol. 306, No. 2, p. 206-7), Murtagh and Ludwig advocate the referral of morbidly obese children to state protective service agencies in cases where their families fail to implement and follow plans for effective weight reduction. In short, in the opinion of these authors, morbid childhood obesity should be considered a form of parental neglect.

Having dealt with a good number of child abuse cases over the span of my professional career, I have learned that if proving abuse is difficult, substantiating neglect is even more so.  The burden of proof lies with the clinician.  I for one would not look forward to appearing in the dock charged with supporting the recommendation that a morbidly obese child be removed from the home because the parents were unable to control his weight.  more»