(no subject)

[rivka]

A couple in Bellevue, WA have been criminally charged for starving their baby so she wouldn't get fat.

The starvation appears to have begun before birth; the mother was induced at 38 weeks because of poor fetal growth, and the baby was only 5 1/4 pounds at birth. Two months later, having gained only a pound, the baby was removed from the parents' custody and placed into foster care - where she gained six pounds in two months. The mother's response was to complain that the baby had gotten fat. Shortly thereafter, the foster mother thought the baby's bottle smelled funny after a visit with the mother. Its contents were analyzed and found to contain a laxative.

The mother complained that she wanted her children's weight to stay below the 50th percentile because the father (6' and 185lbs) "has a weight problem." When the father saw his baby at a normal weight, he complained that the child had gained so much weight she wouldn't learn to walk.

Clearly there are massive mental health problems involved here. The mother was diagnosed with postpartum depression with psychotic features shortly after the birth, and she reported that she stopped taking her medication after only a few days because of side effects. The Seattle Times reports that at 5'5" she only weighs 90 pounds. So, you know, she's probably anorexic herself. I hope the parents get help. I hope their kids are not returned to them.

I don't want to minimize the individual pathology involved here... but I have to say that I do also blame the enormous social hysteria about "childhood obesity," and the extent to which American cultural ideas about food and health are excessively focused on dieting. It probably does take a mental disorder to actually starve your baby. But I believe that unhealthy, restrictive, and dieting-influenced views about feeding babies and children are widespread and dangerous. People inclined to make their children's food intake conform to the standards of adult dieters will find plenty of encouragement out there, and not many cautions.

My experience of this comes from having had an underweight kid. Alex didn't gain any weight from 9 to 15 months, and I spent a lot of time surfing parenting advice websites and forums looking for advice about how to foster weight gain. I did come up with some excellent advice about increasing the nutritional density of the foods I offered. I also came upon the same few things again and again, in discussion threads related to toddlers who were underweight or slipping on the growth charts:

• "With childhood obesity such a huge problem, why is a doctor worried about one of the skinny kids?"


• "You know, the growth charts are based on kids who eat a standard American diet with lots of junk food."


• "She only eats whole grains, veggies, and fruits - that's a great, healthy diet for a toddler!"

I am ashamed to say that I eventually figured out that I fell into the trap of that third mindset myself. I fed Alex plenty of foods which were each healthy individually, but overall her diet was lacking in fat and she tended to fill her stomach up with foods that were low-calorie. I'd give her a rice cake to nibble on, for example, while I was fixing her lunch. I thought her diet was healthy... and if it had been my diet, it would have been. Young children have different dietary needs. They need quite a bit of fat. They need energy-dense foods. And they need to gain weight on a steady curve, even if you do suspect that the kids who made up the growth-chart sample ate Cheetos.

A few times, in these discussions, the diet-focused mindset was so intense that people seemed literally unable to understand that they were being asked about weight gain, even when it had been well-explained by the original poster. Instead, they replied with helpful suggestions for weight loss.

I remember two examples specifically. In one case, a woman whose child had special needs and had been clinically diagnosed as having "failure to thrive" described how she had finally figured out that she could get him to eat enough food to keep him out of the hospital if she sat him in his highchair in front of Sesame Street. The first reply: "Letting kids eat in front of the TV is bad because 'automatic eating' can lead to obesity." In the other case, a mother posted asking for recommendations for her underweight preschooler. The first response: "It's my understanding that the most important thing is to teach your child to avoid 'emotional eating.'"

The diet culture seeps in even when people are railing against eating disorders. Check out this blog post from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The guy goes on at length about what a horrible, horrible mother this woman is who starved her baby. Then he comes out with this:

Ultimately, if you really want to produce healthy children with fashion-model figures, you have to do some real parenting; adjusting your child's eating habits away from the starch/sugar/fat quicksand of modern culture and teaching about the virtues of a GREAT diet. It's work. It's eighteen, nineteen years of constant supervision and good examples and the Labbertons tried to short-cut the process, which they not only shouldn't do, they simply can't do - not without dire consequences to their children.

So: trying to make your kids have "fashion-model figures" is not a problem. Constantly monitoring every bite they take for eighteen or nineteen years is not a problem. Teaching them to vilify whole food groups is not a problem. The only problem, apparently, is thinking that you can "short-cut the process" and make your kids be skinny without unceasing effort. (And he has no idea where these parents got their crazy ideas about food.)

So yeah, I think the parents of this poor baby have serious psychiatric problems. But I also think that the culture they live in gives far too much validation to the idea that thinness = health and health = thinness, and that diet-monitoring can never begin too early. So in addition to heaping blame on the parents, I have plenty of blame left over for every hand-wringing news article hyping the scourge of "childhood obesity" and every parental-advice source that stresses purity of diet.

I read the news articles I linked to above while Colin was eating his lunch. I spread the butter on his whole-wheat toast extra thick and gave him an extra half-slice of cheese.

Comments

[ailbhe]

*hug*?

When I heard about it, I thought about the person my friend knew who fed her newborn skim milk instead of breastmilk or formula; my friend refused to tell me any more about it because I would "only report them."

Asyouknowbob I heard a fairish bit on the other side, with my off-top-of-charts baby. Even now they periodically register as overweight or obese on BMI charts, especially just before growth spurts.

I'm so glad I have sane internet friends, at least.

(Oh, and does Colin like avocado? I like avocado).

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I thought about the person my friend knew who fed her newborn skim milk instead of breastmilk or formula; my friend refused to tell me any more about it because I would "only report them."

...
...
...I don't think that friend would be my friend anymore.

[ailbhe]

No, there was a distinct cooling off.

[nelc.livejournal.com]

When I read about stuff like this, I'm almost glad that I missed having children (...look, I just forgot, okay?). Bringing up children in a sane society would be hard enough.

[elynne.livejournal.com]

YES THIS VERY MUCH. Except that I didn't so much forget having kids as realize that I would much rather raise kittens forever, because my maternal instincs are wired wrong, but that's a whole other thing. Suffice to say - yes, this is a very sick society we're living in right now. *sigh* Also that being a Seattle person myself, I have heard a lot about this article, and will continue to hear more about it, far more than I would prefer.

[wiredferret.livejournal.com]

I read that too, and asked my partner if it was too late to lock my children in a media-free environment.

It is terrible what happened to both children.

And it is terrible terrible what happened to the child who became their mother. (Did you catch the part where there have also been domestic abuse calls for the dad hitting the mom?)

I was not brave enough to read the comments on the article.

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

I'd heard about this, and wondered if there was some Munchausen By Proxy involved with the parents.

[naomikritzer]

That was my first thought, as well. At the very least, their form of abuse and psychosis has distinct MBP features (i.e., deliberately feeding the child something that would make her sick).

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Some folks with eating disorders use laxatives in hopes of purging some calories. If I understand correctly, it doesn't work - but it seems to be a common-ish meme.

So, adding laxatives to the food still supports the "must keep kid from being fat!" insanity.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

No, MBP really doesn't fit - at least, not with the information we have so far. A MBP parent causes harm to their child because they enjoy the attention and other aspects of the experience of being the parent of a sick child. This looks more like straight-up parental anorexia, extended to encompass the child as well.

[namedphoenix.livejournal.com]

Wow.

If I hadn't read this, I would have easily given my child an adult-healthy diet as often as possible.

Thankfully, I have no children in my immediate future, so this will have to be filed away into the "use later" category.

Where did you find the sensible dietary requirements for kiddos? Because I am leery of using the internet for such things.

And in terms of low weight babies and people - my friend once could only feed her kid (can't remember how old he was, but definitely toddler) baby bella cheese and whole cream. He would not touch a single other thing. Not even real junk food.

That went on for about two weeks. The pediatrician assured her that a baby will not intentionally starve itself, so if she can keep getting that protein in him like she was doing, then he would only get really worried if the kid started changing his behavior to reflect the malnutrition. Eventually, her kid began to eat pasta and slowly got back to eating his previous favorite foods.

And the whole thin=healthy, healthy=thin thing? I feel ya. People are obsessed in America about this stuff.

[naomikritzer]

When you have a kid, you usually get a number of useful resources, including stacks of books on parenting, and a pediatrician. All will assure you that kids need more fat than adults do; that babies should get breastmilk or formula (both of which are high fat) until they're one and whole milk until they're two.

[almeda.livejournal.com]

Except that I'm getting spammed with 'recommendations' purporting to be from the APA that I should start my kid on 2% at 12mo, and a generally 'low-fat' diet.

Not that I'm GOING to, because *ptui*. Also argh. Plus my pediatrician seems to think that, after 12mo, cow milk is more nutritionally appropriate for kids than human milk, not that I'm going to quit breastfeeding ...

[naomikritzer]

That's crazy talk. (That cow's milk is more nutritionally appropriate. Well, and that they need a low-fat diet at 12 months, too.)

[rivka.livejournal.com]

You didn't know that after 12mo your baby will suddenly morph into a calf? Well-regarded fact of biology.

[sioneva.livejournal.com]

I'd look into books by Ellyn Satter - although I haven't read them myself, my nutritionist, who has a very holistic view of food/size/etc., highly recommends them as being excellent guides for parents who want to avoid issues around food for kids AND parents.

My rule of thumb when feeding my son has always been that I give him whole dairy products, a well-balanced diet (i.e., plenty of calorie-dense snacks from a range of food groups) and do my best NOT to obsess about how much he eats at any given meal but look at his overall food consumption in a week/month.

[rockstarbob.livejournal.com]

This is disgusting and disturbing being belief.

[laurarey.livejournal.com]

How utterly tragic. I worried for a few months about Rachel's weight gain. She loves to eat....anything....and right before a growth spurt the kid gets roly-poly and creeps up on 90% in terms of weight. My doctor and I had a long talk about it and she said Rachel is thriving and very healthy and I should relax about her weight.

I was fast getting sucked into the whole "obese-children-omg!" mindset. It is very easy to do.

I hope that the parents get some help.

[pameladean]

The only part of the State of the Union that made me exclaim in horror was this:

"And by the way, I want to acknowledge our First Lady, Michelle Obama, who this year is creating a national movement to tackle the epidemic of childhood obesity and make our kids healthier."

Aaaaaaagggggghhhhhhh.

P.

[ljgeoff.livejournal.com]

Hell yeah. Of all the things that she could have picked up. Sheesh.

[(Anonymous)]

i once stumbled into a small group of people in a cafe, who had all had the stomach staple operation. They told me of the many many health problem they now have, and the years taken *off* their lives compared the average life span for the obese. One woman told me of how taboo it is in any online forum to say they regret having the operation - the only acceptable attitude is "I'm sick, i'm dying, but at least i'm not unhealthy and obese anymore".

everytime i hear of anyone considering such an operation I'm reminded of that small support group - but without the public statements, and without readily available literature on the down sides, I've got nothing to pass on as a warning.

better to be sick and in pain than to be one of those "unhealthy", longer lived, fat people, eh?

[elusis.livejournal.com]

Junkfood Science (http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/) hasn't been updated much lately but she has a whole sidebar on her "bariatric series," all of which offer masses of great information about how dangerous and destructive bariatric surgery is to health.

Shapely Prose and The Rotund and other blogs in the "fatosphere" have also taken on media re-prints of bariatric press releases, including the recent one where bariatric surgery is now being recommended to lower and lower weight people.

[moobabe.livejournal.com]

Yeah. This is just... wrong.

Hannah had a time period from about 15-18 months where she didn't gain weight. I kept bringing her to her pediatrician saying, "SOMETHING is wrong." And her doctor would say, "She's just skinny, like you." (Yeah, except we share no genetics.) Finally, finally, we figured that she was having trouble swallowing because her tonsils were gigantic. When we stopped formula (at 15 months), she wasn't getting enough calories, because swallowing was too much work. She's still a little toothpick, but we encourage her to eat a diet including fat. (She does use this to her advantage at times, heh.)

Thank goodness for adjustable waist jeans, though.

[elusis.livejournal.com]

Could I recommend adding "fat hatred" to the trigger warning cut tag? Because that's really what's at issue here, in addition to the maltreatment issue.


And they need to gain weight on a steady curve, even if you do suspect that the kids who made up the growth-chart sample ate Cheetos.

Dietary studies don't bear this out (http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=100704F).

The idea that most fat people get that way due to overeating is pretty heavily disputed (http://www.obesitymyths.com/myth5.1.htm) too.

[sioneva.livejournal.com]

As someone who is recovering from compulsive eating disorder, one of the clues to me that I really, really needed to get professional help was when I started freaking out when my son went from the 25th percentile at birth (6lbs, 9oz and SKINNY) to the 50th percentile around a year. I was panicking that everyone was going to point at him and accuse me of being the fat mother making my baby fat. I NEEDED him to be under the 50th percentile.

So I know that mindset. I'm very, very grateful that I was well enough to realize that it was wrong. Clearly this mother was not well enough (and certainly her husband sounds manipulative, if not abusive).

I hope both kids find homes where they have accepting, loving parents, especially since the fact that the littlest one definitely was starved in utero will predispose her to weight gain later in life. I hope her foster/adoptive parents will NOT be fatphobic, if that is the case!

[rivka.livejournal.com]

You are really awesome for recognizing that things were getting out of hand and getting help.

[sioneva.livejournal.com]

I'm lucky to have a supportive husband and family (and a mother who's coming around to the idea of Health At Every Size). If I had an abusive husband, who knows how it would have turned out instead.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I am totally willing to concede that you may also have an awesome husband and family, but as someone who has also been a Crazy Mother, I reiterate: you are awesome for figuring it out and getting help.

[bosssio.livejournal.com]

The impact of poor nutrition on young children is pretty serious, though also reversible (within limits) if corrected early enough.

My friend's son, A, didn't eat, had severe reflux and only drank chocolate milk for two years after weaning. The peds were convinced it was a parenting issue, even though she was doing everything she could think of to get him to eat more/better variety.

He also didn't sleep at night either and had significant developmental delays in speech, fine and gross motor, cognitive development, etc.

at age 4, during a ph balance scope, they discovered a polyp that sporadically completely blocked the exit of his stomach. His stomach was never properly emptied. It caused all his problems - reflux, self-selected liquid diet, his poor nutritional status.

In the year since the surgery, he has started sleeping well, placed out of his special education school, grown 5 inches, gained 10 lbs, and has shown an amazing change in personality, cognitive and adaptive ability, gross/fine motor skills - seriously, he did about three years of growing in one year.

Interestingly, my friend has a good friend who has custody of her nephew who was seriously neglected and malnourished during his childhood. Unfortunately, the damage may be too severe (there was also abuse), though he too has seen tremendous gains from just good nutrition and stability.

[castiron.livejournal.com]

My younger son is extremely tiny (below third percentile in weight since birth, and barely on the chart in height), and if I got someone telling me to worry about overfeeding him, I'd have to tell them where they could put a hot soldering iron -- or tell them they can talk to his doctor if they're that worried about it; she'd give them an earful.

My older son is on a medication that has the potential side effect of weight gain; I worried a little about it when deciding whether to put him on it, but came to my senses when I remembered that he's also a skinny kid and extremely active; he'd have to gain a *lot* of weight to reach the obese range. (And since going on the med, his weight gain is in line with his growth in height.)

[kate_nepveu]

So we had our first parent-teacher conference today, and the teacher (who started off saying "well, this is going to be really easy!") only had one concern, which was that SteelyKid was hungry a lot and she felt like they were stuffing her with snacks because she kept asking for food after she was done her meals.

And before this post I would have been, "uh, what's the problem? Just feed her more, already."

Instead I was as reassuring as I could be in telling her "she's really good at signaling when she's actually done eating, she's a big strong active child and we have ABSOLUTELY NO PROBLEM in her eating as much food as she needs." And also suggesting changes in her meals.

But how upsetting is it that this attitude is so prevalent that an experienced toddler teacher would be apprehensive about telling parents, "hey, your kid needs to eat more"?