Sunday, July 17, 2011

This is Wrong on So Many Levels

In a story reported on The Blaze, Dr. David Ludwig, an obesity specialist at Harvard-affiliated Children’s Hospital Boston, said it might be better for the child to let child protective services remove obese children from their homes and put them in foster care than to leave them at home.  For reasons I don't understand, he appears to think the alternative is forcing surgery on the child. 

This is so wrong on so many levels, it's hard to know where to start, so let's start here. 

I have two big concerns with Dr. Ludwig's proposal: first is that this idea morphs from something borne of medical “concern” into just another ploy to get children out of a family home, where they become walking bundles of cash to the state systems that feed on the “care” for these kids: 
As Baskerville points out in his horrifying study Taken Into Custody: The War Against Fatherhood, "it is no exaggeration to say that the existence of family courts, and virtually every issue they adjudicate -- divorce, custody, child abuse, child-support enforcement, even adoption and juvenile crime -- depend on one overriding principle: remove the father." When a family is broken up, each child "becomes a walking bundle of cash" -- not for the custodial parent, but for a huge and expanding population of tax-fattened functionaries who "adopt as their mission in life the practice of interfering with other people's children."
I think that CPS, like everything else that governments do in general, has gone from occasionally helpful to almost completely tyrannical.  The actions of child protective services are the reason that Thomas Bell burned himself to death, about a month ago, and that William Grigg talked about here.  It's why a Georgia mom was investigated for having some food storage and subjected to absurd accusations such as “being in a top secret agency against the government”.  (h/t Preparedness Pro)

The other big problem I have with this is the fact that medicine is exceptionally bad at treating obesity.  I (and many others) would suggest that the diet the doctors are recommending is probably the cause of the kids' obesity.  Would it surprise you to know that a leading researcher who has been studying obesity for decades believes dieting may be the cause of most obesity?  A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a piece on some truths about diet and fitness that are hard to get out.  It's not a stretch to say that if you're like most people who haven't studied this, everything you think you know is probably wrong.

“So what's the big idea?  Everybody knows how to treat obesity: eat a little less; exercise a little more is the answer.”  Unfortunately, no.  While saying that losing weight requires taking in less energy than you use is something everyone knows, that approach is remarkably unsuccessful at treating obesity.  It's true that probably anyone can lose weight on a short term, calorie-restricted diet, but the result is an almost universal rebound in which weight returns to the starting point – or higher.  Doesn't everybody know this? 

Researchers have known it for almost 200 years.  You can think of that statement about calories – energy balance – as being information-free.  It conveys no useful information about treating the unbalance.

The diet they're recommending for the kids is causing their obesity?  As Gary Taubes said in his NY Times article, What If It's All Been a Big Fat Lie,
If the members of the American medical establishment were to have a collective find-yourself-standing-naked-in-Times-Square-type nightmare, this might be it. They spend 30 years ridiculing Robert Atkins, author of the phenomenally-best-selling ''Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution'' and ''Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution,'' accusing the Manhattan doctor of quackery and fraud, only to discover that the unrepentant Atkins was right all along. Or maybe it's this: they find that their very own dietary recommendations -- eat less fat and more carbohydrates -- are the cause of the rampaging epidemic of obesity in America. Or, just possibly this: they find out both of the above are true.
The Food Pyramid that has been put out as gospel since the early 80s says to eat mostly carbohydrate with little meat and less fat.  The alternative hypothesis, which is really just the contents of a first course in endocrinology, is that because of the effects they have on insulin and blood sugar, carbohydrates are uniquely fattening.  It's because of this that the Dr.s Eades refer to the food pyramid as th Hog Fattening Diet.  Weight loss diets were researched widely since the 1800s, and the world's first diet book, from the 1860s, said reducing carbohydrate intake was the way to lose weight.  The British undertaker William Banting wrote a best-selling book, “Letter on Corpulence”, in which he discussed his efforts to lose weight, including exercise and various attempts at diet.   

Soy protein appears to be toxic to the thyroid in many people.  Soy protein is often recommended for widespread consumption as a way to reduce consumption of animal fat. We believe Mrs. Graybeard was hurt by the recommendations to eat soy, and needed to adjust her intake of thyroid hormone.  A Bing search returns 579,000 hits on “soy thyroid damage” - I'm sure many are from folks (cough, ADM, cough) who say there's no problem.  This New Zealand web site reports that “Theodore Kay of the Kyoto University Faculty of Medicine noted in 1988 that 'thyroid enlargement in rats and humans, especially children and women, fed with soybeans has been known for half a century'.”   

It's hard to envision a situation in which it's good to give children over to foster care instead of leaving them in a loving home.  I'm sure what Dr. Ludwig is trying to do is to get “allowing” your child to be obese classified as child abuse.  I'm sure there's no reason to think it might eventually morph from obese into just overweight, then mildly overweight, or, perhaps too blonde or allowing them too much time in the sun.  Oh, no, there's never any evidence of over reach on the government's part.

By, the way: been camping with your kids? 

Edit:  2115 EDT   Two bad links fixed.

5 comments:

  1. Reading about Sherrie's experience along with William Grigg's experience is enough to really set me off. People working for county/state CPS who are willing to cause such significant trauma to both the family and the very children they pretend to be concerned about protecting need to be dealt with harshly. May I suggest with extreme prejudice? Marine MOS 0317.

    I do not have children, but if I did, I would not be setting myself on fire on the courthouse steps. I would be immolating those who would use the power of the State to damage families and children in this way, when there is no earthly reason to be doing so.

    One of the reasons I am unable to believe in a divine being is because I cannot imagine an omnipotent creator willing to accept the incredible suffering human beings cause to defenseless, innocent infants and children, the abuse, molestation, and neglect that so many have suffered and will continue to suffer. (I've heard the excuses, but I refuse to give credence to any of them.)

    These scum who think their authority as minions of the State permits them to damage the children and families they harass need to be stopped.

    And when MicHELLe quits stuffing her homely face with french fries, and drops fifty or sixty pounds, maybe I'll be willing to listen to her thoughts about childhood obesity (even though she will still be wrong.)

    Would you like me to tell you how I really feel about this? ;-)

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  2. Yeah, go ahead and let us know how you really feel. I can tell you're holding back :-)

    As a general rule, when people say things like "the worse, the better", or "let it burn", implying we need to let the country burn to the ground so we can rebuild it, I get nauseous. We really do need to throw out 90% of the CFR, and shut down probably 80% or more of Fed.gov agencies. As the number of laws grows, it becomes impossible to do anything without breaking them. We all know what Ayn Rand said about that.

    On the other hand, to ask for chaos, revolution and blood in the streets, the inevitable result of the country collapsing, spooks me. Makes me want to dig a hidey hole somewhere and just pull the ground over until it's all over. With many groups fighting each other, it will be exceptionally ugly.

    If there's a way to restore the republic without that, I'd like to know. Unfortunately, it looks like collapse can't be avoided.

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  3. The CPS thing sounds pretty disturbing. This quote from her blog makes it hard for me to consider her a thoughtful person:

    "NOW TO ALL THOSE WHO STILL BELIEVE IN NUCLEAR POWER! STOP BEING DELUDED! THINK FOR YOURSELF! UNDERSTAND NUCLEAR ENERGY IS THE MOST TOXIC FORM OF ENERGY THERE IS! IT CONTAMINATES THE EARTH FOR THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS OF YEARS! IT HAS ALREADY KILLED THOUSANDS IF NOT A MILLION PEOPLE (CHERNOBYL) AND IT HAS CAUSED BABIES TO BE DEFORMED BY THE THOUSANDS, IF NOT MILLION!


    EVERYONE NEEDS TO STAND UP AND DEMAND ALL NUCLEAR ENERGY NEEDS TO BE STOPPED IMMEDIATELY! SERIOUSLY - THE CONTAMINATION OF THE EARTH AND PEOPLE HAS TO STOP NOW! THINK ABOUT OUR CHILDREN! THEY ARE NOT GOING TO HAVE A LIVEABLE AND SUSTAINABLE EARTH FOR THEIR FAMILIES!"

    Ummm... so we should try to shut down the sun?

    I think I would be in favor of a statement such as:

    We should try to learn what we can from Fukishima and previous nuc accidents. A reactor needs to be able to shut down gracefully if the plant experiences a total blackout

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  4. Well, we each and every one of us have some area in which we are probably clueless or wrong. Her misunderstanding of the limited hazards of current nuclear technology (Fukushima was an old design of reactor, without the safeguards available today) don't diminish her correct understanding of the horror of the "child protection" racket. Even though she sounds as if she has bought into some of the liberal lines of BS, at least she is forthright enough to take a strong stand against the abuses of CPS.

    If it doesn't frighten the hell out of you (generic "you") that ignorant bureaucrats - or those out to harass you for your personal beliefs, blogging, etc. - can take your very children over trumped up charges that have no merit, then you simply aren't paying attention.

    I disagree with William Grigg's opinions concerning Jews and Israel, but I sure as hell support his opinions of our burgeoning police state and the dangers of CPS. I support this woman's disgust and disgruntlement with these petty but dangerous bureaucrats. YMMV.

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  5. H - Reg kind of beat me to it (he's out west and writes later than I can: I'm on right coast time, and my day job sucks up so much blogging time).... I never said Sherrie was a font of wisdom on everything, just that she has a harrowing tale to tell of CPS gone wrong.

    There's so many of those stories that it's a recurring theme. As Reg said, if the CPS stories don't scare the hell out you, you don't understand the question. CPS and even the sex offender laws are being used to rip apart families.

    A female friend of mine ran away from home while still a teen-aged kid and married a guy in his mid-20s (this was over 40 years ago). Today, that guy would be charged as a sex offender for marrying a girl 10 years younger than him, and would be labeled as a sex offender for life. We know what they meant by that law, but the practicality is that the law is being used well beyond that intent. Same thing with protecting children. It started out with trying to protect children from abuse (which obviously, really happens) and morphed into the "get rid of the father and milk this little wad of cash for life" that Baskerville talks about.

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