"Begging the question" is not the same thing as "raising the question" http://begthequestion.info/.

I don't see why a persons weight, or anything about their looks, should be a factor in how they raise their children. Would someone in a wheelchair be next?

Apologies for dodging the question. Children are often removed from households where drug addiction creates an unhealthy environment (in the opinion of the court.) Is incapacitating obesity really any different in this regard?

Just being overweight is not enough. It does set a bad example, but parents do that everyday. If the persons weight won't allow them to physically keep up with their kids, or if they can't get up to feed and bath them, and give them a clean place to live, then there should be some intervention.

Being morbidly obese its likely the kids would have to take care of the parent more than the parent taking care of their kids. Obese people sit around a lot, don't bathe. Make frequent trips to the doctor due to many health issues. Then there are the social issues and pressures, other kids making fun of you because you have an obese parent, your father to fat to ride the ferris wheel with you at the fair, can't play baseball with you, ride bicycles, etc. What kind of role model is this type of parent?

This is ridiculous and if I were the parent, I would fight it all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary. Good parenting is an attitude and a set of values, not a size. If it is as a role model, what about smokers, alocholics, druggies, gamblers, divorcees, etc. Get real, people.

I have been overweight or obese all of my life except for the first seven years, when I was skinny as a rail! I have led a full and active life, played softball, basketball, volleyball, tennis, racquetball, fished, camped, hiked, coached both baseball and softball, volleyball and basketball successfully. I have traveled all but 3 states and have been to two countries. currently I go to tai chi twice a week, arthritis exercise once a week, work at a soup kitchen, take my dog to agility training twice a week, scrapbook, travel several times a year and am active on committees at my church. Yes, I have health issues like arthritis, but I keep going. I bathe at least once a day, do my laundry, and my dishes. I can't do all my house work anymore or the yard work because of the stooping involved, but I am far from incapacitated. I taught for over 30 years and was a PE major in college. I have dieted practially non stop, sometimes with success, other times to gain back the weight. Yes, I would be considered morbidly obese, but I keep trying. And I enjoy life. Being fat does not make you a bad role model. It's what you do with your life that makes you a good or bad role model. No, I don't have kids, but I have a lot of former students that will tell you that my weight has never been an issue when it comes to my teaching or interacting. Attitudes of people who consider "fat" people second class citizens present a poor role model in my opinion.

This is a very interesting issue. As I read the story, the man is now 380 pounds. He was 525 pounds. At that weight, he was unlikely to have been able to care for himself, let alone two children.
I give him lots of credit for losing more than 100 pounds to keep his kids, but someone who gets to that weight is undoubtedly suffering from some food addiction or compulsive eating disorder. Even that, I don't think disqualifies him from being a parent.
But if I were the judge, I would certainly be looking at the family's outside support or lack of it, his financial ability to hire help, and whether he is getting treatment for his eating disorder, because if he isn't, that weight is going to come right back on as soon as the legal crisis is averted.

If being poor isn't a qualifier for losing your kids, how could being overweight be a qualifier? This is just part of the nanny state yet again over stepping it's boundaries.

I would like to know the rest of the story. No one loses their children because they are too fat, too skinny, too ugly, too beautiful. However, if this man was incapacitated to the point that he could no longer care for his children as a result of his medical condition (no matter if that condition is self induced or not) then the state has a responsibility to act in the best interest of the children. I feel for this father and for his displaced children, these situations are always sad.
That being said, this should not be used as a free for all to "pick on" obese parents. Making ignorant remarks that obese people "sit around a lot, don't bathe"is not helping anything or anyone. I happen to be obese. I own my own business, I am the mother of two young children, I landscape my acreage, I walk or swim an hour every day. I play with my children, keep a clean house, bathe daily, and prepare healthy meals and snacks for my family. I have seen plenty of thin people sit around , yell at or ignore their children, live in filth and collect welfare. Judging people by their appearance is like opening Pandora's box, where does it end?

Colleen, here's the link to the story: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2012/06/21/Man-ruled-too-fat-to-be-a-good-parent/UPI-12111340311334/?spt=hs&or=tn.

I knew there was more to the story. The children are special needs children and the father until recently ran an illegal marajuana farm.

I was just going to say that, Megan. The judge ordered the children be put up for adoption because their father was deemed obese, not because of these other factors.

Wow. I'm almost afraid to wade in, since I was an anorexic teenager and my 23-year-old daughter tells me I'm still "fat phobic." Inside my overweight body is a thin person struggling to get out again! I've lost 25 pounds, and yes, it is hard.

I have to admit that as a former social worker, I've seen the children of morbidly obese and also wheelchair-bound parents get turned into servants instead of being allowed to be children and play with their peers. That's an emotionally unhealthy situation for both children and parents, but I wouldn't have removed the children if the father was trying to lose weight and achieved some success. Perhaps there are other factors involved other than the man's weight, factors we don't know about?

mea jones, as a social worker, I was frustrated because the Department of Human Services and the courts often failed to take away children when they should have. I had a 17-year-old client whose baby we were taking away from her, and legitimately so, and it turns out that DHS had intervened in her family when SHE was four. I met the mother and the depressed son and THEY should have been removed. I hate to see cycles of abuse and neglect continue unto the seventh/eighth generation. It's depressing and destructive.

I should have been able to save a lot more children than I was able to save. One of my proudest achievements was smuggling an eight-year-old boy into judge's chambers when the judge and the attorneys involved were going to decide what happened to him. I sat him on my lap and he told the judge that he didn't want to move back with his mother because every time he caught up with her she'd abandon him again. Both bio. parents were criminals and went to prison. The foster parents adopted both little boys, the eight-year-old and his little brother. It was a happy ending. I always had to fight with the foster parents and the DHS case worker and convince a judge to achieve success.

Jim Zupan, of course I'm not telling the whole story. My comment is long enough as it is. My problem is with naive social workers, lawyers, and parents who think that every child should be reunited with his or her parents. There are a lot of people having children who have no business having children, and it's a problem for those children, their own ability to parent later in life, and society in general.

No one social worker makes the determination to remove a child. A judgment like that has to pass muster with the social worker's supervisor and the judge makes the ultimate decision.

Too many children have died in the custody of their parents or a caregiver who is abusive and neglectful. A caregiver allegedly murdered a 20-month-old toddler who was in his care for two hours. Tragedies like this and others, such as the death of two-year-old Shelby Duis while DHS was on the case, should wake up the naive pollyannas who think that all families should be reunited, which is the current fashion at DHS. Stating as a goal that all children should be reunited with all parents is foolish and dangerous. If there is an error in the system of child welfare in Iowa, it's that too few children are removed from their bio. families, not too many.

There you go again. Remind me again; just what gives you the right to determine who has "no business having children"? I think to myself, that I could reasonably choose who should, and who shouldn't...but realistically I know that I have no right to make that determination. If I see a child in danger, I will do something to take him or her out of harms way. I will not say whom should, or should not have children...I will leave that to a higher power, as I am not qualified.

There are objective criteria for removing children, not just subjective criteria. I have a master's degree in social work and I'm licensed at the highest possible level, Licensed Independent Social Worker (inactive). I've seen horrific abuse and neglect. Even if I could give you the details, I wouldn't. You live in a fantasy world.

I've seen parents do absolutely monstrous things. You have no idea. Spend a few years in the trenches of child welfare social work and then talk to me again.

I grew up on the other side of this. I had a social worker once. Sue was her name. I was placed in home after home. Group homes, foster care, What a joke of a system. I found most foster homes were in it for the money, and to have extra labor around the house.

Maria, what about all the abuse - of every kind - and the murders - that occur in CPS custody - foster "care" etc.? How come social workers - who apparently are so concerned with child abuse - never talk about that?

HOW DANGEROUS IS FOSTER CARE?

http://fixcas.com/scholar/stats.htm

Jim Zupan, thanks for telling me where you're coming from. That makes a difference. I've met a lot of really fine people who are foster parents and only one or two foster parents, especially one in particular, who were bad for the children they "cared for."

I grew up in a family that was rife with violent assaults, cruel emotional and physical abuse. None of us were removed. Two of us left of our own accord and my 18-year-old brother committed suicide after he left voluntarily. I don't know if our lives would have been better had we been removed when we should have been. My brother tried to do too much too fast; he might have done better had my father paid his financial support as he had promised to, but he didn't.

Call me not so naive about parental abuse and neglect. All four of us were damaged permanently; it was just a question of degree and whether it was survivable or not.

Thank you again for your honesty. I've tried to be honest in return. I never forgave myself for my brother's suicide so young. As the oldest, I tried to mother and protect all of my siblings, starting before I was four. I saved my second sister's life twice, once when she was drowning in the bathtub and once when she'd fallen out of a faulty car door onto an eight-lane highway in a snowstorm in Seattle. I reminded my parents that they'd left my brother at a rest stop when he was really little, three or four. I told my dad when a mother bear was coming at my brother. A lot, but not enough.

The comments above by social worker Maria are typical of social workers, who often claim they experienced great abuse as children - and perhaps they did (although "abuse" can be very subjective). It is evident that this has coloured their view of family in a very detrimental manner. The fact is, most parents - while not being perfect - do love their children and care for them, and care for them much better than the state does.

It's also very typical for social workers to give specific examples of abuse, in order to elicit an emotional reaction, as they know - either consciously or subconsciously - that people will be prejudiced when they read / hear such comments. And gradually this prejudice grows to include parents as an entire class of people. That is why parental rights are severely under attack, all over the world. Because people have been led to believe that abusive parents are everywhere, and that because parents are abusers, they should - instantly, and without due process - have their children taken from them.

What people really need to do is investigate what Child Protective Services does to families, how they basically steal children in order to justify their jobs and budgets, and how an massive industry is aiding and abetting the kidnapping of children from their families - expert witnesses, lawyers, social workers, etc., etc. - all are making money, or keeping their jobs, by pretending they are protecting children.

interesting - after reading all these comments about the parents being obese and being able to parent. my first thoughts are - are the children healthy? they are living in a household with parents who 1. aren't eating healthy 2. issues with food 3. aren't exercising 4. ROLE MODELS??? ok - so generalizing things here - but you get the point - children learn behaviors from their parents! My guess is a lot of them are learning unhealthy eating and exercising habits - bad habits that will lead them down a road to obesity! I'm surprised that nobody has touched on this side of the topic - ultimately - that is the concern here right? - obese parents being good parents - so HOW ARE THE KIDS!??? PHYSICALLY and mentally!?? I would say in most cases you won't remove the kids - but I would definitely get the FAMILY into a program to provide information about nutrition, exercising & portion control - or counseling to help with food issues.

Try having your kids taken because they diagnose you as a pollyanna which means a person who likes to positive Nd not dwell on the negative

Cps is corrupt I was just like all of you believing they did the right thing blah hoagie blah now I know they are criminals and that poor man has no support against them they make money off of kids destroy families innocent people are hurt you want to know the truth go to a cps family court hearing they let anyone into here your cases go see which families are truly being hurt