Should parents lose custody of their severely obese children?

That’s what Dr. David Ludwig argues – in some extreme cases.  An obesity expert at Children’s Hospital Boston, he wrote an opinion piece that ran in the Journal of the American Medical Association which is obviously sparking controversy.

“In severe instances of childhood obesity, removal from the home may be justifiable, from a legal standpoint because of imminent health risks and the parents’ chronic failure to address medical problems,” he co-wrote with Lindsey Murtagh, a lawyer and researcher at Harvard’s School of Public Health.

“State intervention may serve the best interests of many children with life-threatening obesity, comprising the only realistic way to control harmful behaviors,” they wrote.

Their piece on the Journal has of course set off a huge debate.  But the authors made sure to point out that removing obese kids from the home was not always the best solution and should only be considered as the very last option.

Roughly 17 percent, or 12.5 million, children and teens are obese in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

“State intervention would clearly not be desirable or practical, and probably not be legally justifiable, for most of the approximately 2 million children in the United States with a BMI at or beyond the 99th percentile,” the authors wrote.

Should obese children be taken away from their home and put into care? Or do you think that obese children should not be removed from the home, but rather the parents and kids have an intervention?

What do you think?