Petite passenger booted from Southwest flight

[debk]

Deb, I'm appalled. That statement SMACKS of nanny statism..... You don't know WHY the child is obese. Unless you do, you really shouldn't be making comments like that!!

And, Patriot Game is right. The airlines HAVE downsized their seats so that an average Oriental male (5'8" and 170, tops) can fit in them. Forget it if one is above average in size. It's all about how many passengers the airplane can carry vs comfort of the passenger. Deb, you're lucky. You're barely 5'4' and medium build. Try being 6'4" or 6'5" (I shrunk, get over it) and being stuck in the cattle section......

You're right....I don't know WHY the child is obese.

I do know that a child/adult may become obese from a disease or from a medication because I do know that some medications given for cancer, kidney diseases, and others, do cause obesity.

I also know that there are a whole lot of children out there ...at least here in E TN, who are just flat out obese. You can walk into any elementary school, middle school or high school here in this county....a county of 450,000+....and find morbidly obese children. Among other things, morbid obesity is 100 pounds above the "ideal" weight for the body structure.

According to this site.....http://www.halls.md/chart/women-weight-w.htm

The average female American womens weight is somewhere between 60 to 72 kilograms, depending on age.( for white females*).

Age:        20 to 29 yrs      30 to 39 yrs       40 to 49 yrs       50 to 59 yrs       60 to 69 yrs
kilograms     59.8                 65.5                  67.7                  71.7                   68.9
pounds        132                  144                   149                   158                    152
These are the "median" (50th percentile) weights, which are very close to-, but not exactly "average".
 

The weights mentioned above are pretty close to the same weights that are considered to be average for life insurance applications. Personally, I don't want to weigh as much as what "average" is for my age....thankfully I don't, because it's too much for my height and bone structure. Nevertheless..."average" is still "average".

But the point is, these are not "light-weight" amounts. And these weights are for average, adult women....not children.

If a child is needing 2 airplane seats because of her weight...she has to be weighing in well over 200+ pounds. If it is not because of a medical condition(disease)....then her parents are at fault. In my opinion, abusively at fault.

Female bodies constructed considerably different than the male body....and I don't mean the obvious by breasts or genitalia.

Women are made to have more fat cells than men are, in order for reproduction. We must be able to sustain life within our own bodies, that feed off of our bodies....which is why we have to take vitamins during pregnancy, not only for the child, but in order to keep our own body has intact as possible during pregnancy. So our bones stay strong, our teeth healthy (did you know that it wasn't all that long ago, many women lost at least one tooth per pregancy?) and the rest of our bodies are as healthy as possible.

Unfortunately, for us women, those fat cells tend to cluster themselves through the trunks of our bodies, that as we continue to gain weight throughout our lives, those little fat cells just multiply themselves, right where God planted them when we were forming in the womb. They are in our hips and thighs, bellies, breasts, upper arms, butt, and on our back. When we get pregnant, they multiply even more! They are very resistant to leaving our bodies....and put up a hell of a fight when we try to make them leave. Some will never leave without being surgically removed, or a severe health issue either caused by illness or eating disorder, or possibly an extreme amount of exercise - marathon runners tend to lose all body fat.

Because of the fat cell location on a woman's body, they are very detrimental to our health. They are through our middles....which is extremely unhealthy for our hearts. More women will die from heart disease than anything else. Clustering in our middles, is very bad for our hips. The concentration of weight though our middles, will be very detrimental to our spines and hips as we get older if we get osteoporosis, which most of us will from minimal to extreme.

A female child becoming obese at such a young age, is set up for so many health issues, let alone the mental health issues that tend to coincide with the physical ones. Obesity can cause problems in not only becoming pregnant...but sustaining the pregnancy through to term and delivering a healthy baby. Heart problems, diabetes, structural problems - knees, hips, spinal, breathing problems. The mental issues can be just as detrimental. Poor self-esteem, self-image, self-respect can all lead to suicide, promiscuity, self-mutilation, anorexia/bulimia(which can be equally as harmful as the obesity).

Females are predisposed to be mean-spirited. They can be mean in elementary school...and those that are, usually only become meaner as they get older. We've all met them....been friends of them, been enemies of them, been victims of them, and some of you men...have been married to them. Skinny girls, cute girls, popular girls....what many overweight girls aspire to be or resent that they aren't...can be a constant "in your face - what you arent!" to an overweight girl.

I have a long-time aquaintance who is smart, a very successful sales rep (she makes over a quarter mil a yr and has for several years), tall - about 5'10", probably well below the "average" weight not only for her age (she's abt a year younger than me)certainly for her height, looks great in her clothes, and is attractive. She weighed well over 200lbs when she was in elementary, through the first couple of years of high school. She's been bulemic for years, yet still sees herself as "fat". She has paper-thin skin because of the bulemia which has created a lot of skin issues, the most serious is that she has needed skin graftings after removal of some basal cell cancers on her legs, and the graftings won't take because of the condition of her skin. It's amazing that she has been so incredibly successful in her career, as her skewed sense of self has destroyed her personal life many times over.

I'm sure every woman on this board, knows at least one other woman... who was either overweight as a child, teen, or even at their current age, today....who is similar to my acquaintance. 

So, yes Thor, I do think that a parent allowing their child to become morbidly obese, because of eating, is child abuse.

What an adult does to their own body, is their own business. And while a child is the "business" of the parent, it is the responsiblity of the parent to make sure that child is the healthiest it can possibly be. That's part of the job of parenting. If a parent was starving a child, you would want that child taken away from the parent..because it is harmful to the child. This is the same thing...only the reverse. The parent is harming the child either by not providing healthy foods or allowing the child to eat to extreme. 

Do I think the government should "dictate" to parents how to feed their children. Of course not.

A doctor is required to report abuse to a child. Children are in a doctor's office at least once a year. A pediatrician is not going to condone obeisity in child. A child is not born "obese"...there are "large" babies (I was a month early  weighing 9lb4oz) and "small" ones (my "full term", 6'4" half brother wasn't quite 5lbs at birth)...birth weight is not a definite indication of "adult" size. If a parent, of an obese child, is not willing to better control the child's diet and make sure the child becomes healthy again...then why is that not a reportable abuse of the child?

[Thor]

Deb;

Let's take my daughter , for example. She put on weight after I retired from the Navy. Before that, she was fairly average for her height. Best I can say is it's NOT always the parents fault. In my daughter's instance, I would be more apt to blame the schools. Have you looked at what they feed to kids at lunch?? It's appalling!! I TRIED to get the schools to provide healthier meals and the reply I got was,"It's what the kids LIKE"!! Granted, she wasn't "morbidly obese, but she was/ is overweight. (I don't know any more). The sad fact is that once a person "reports" someone to child services, their life has just become hellish and run by the Libtards that infest the Government. BTW, her Dr saw her AT least annually when I was there, if not more often.

Then, you have Doctors that don't follow through. Look at how long it took me to finally figure out what was going on with me. TEN YEARS!!!! TEN F'N YEARS!!! My regular Doctor in MN saw me almost monthly and never ONCE did he even THINK to send me to a Neurologist. Never once did he think to send me to any other Doctor that could diagnose my condition. I had even suggested to him that I thought I has MS, ALS or something along those lines. He blew me off and said, "No, you don't have any of that" Turns out he was DEAD wrong and I was almost right. SCA parallels MS or ALS as far as its symptoms. Did he even think I MIGHT be onto something?!?!?!?!? F NO!! (I'm just a layman, so I don't KNOW anything!!)

Anyways, I think that you're wrong. Most kids see a DR. at least annually and then, there's a school nurse that sees them at one point or another.

[debk]

Deb;

Let's take my daughter , for example. She put on weight after I retired from the Navy. Before that, she was fairly average for her height. Best I can say is it's NOT always the parents fault. In my daughter's instance, I would be more apt to blame the schools. Have you looked at what they feed to kids at lunch?? It's appalling!! I TRIED to get the schools to provide healthier meals and the reply I got was,"It's what the kids LIKE"!! Granted, she wasn't "morbidly obese, but she was/ is overweight. (I don't know any more). The sad fact is that once a person "reports" someone to child services, their life has just become hellish and run by the Libtards that infest the Government. BTW, her Dr saw her AT least annually when I was there, if not more often.

Then, you have Doctors that don't follow through. Look at how long it took me to finally figure out what was going on with me. TEN YEARS!!!! TEN F'N YEARS!!! My regular Doctor in MN saw me almost monthly and never ONCE did he even THINK to send me to a Neurologist. Never once did he think to send me to any other Doctor that could diagnose my condition. I had even suggested to him that I thought I has MS, ALS or something along those lines. He blew me off and said, "No, you don't have any of that" Turns out he was DEAD wrong and I was almost right. SCA parallels MS or ALS as far as its symptoms. Did he even think I MIGHT be onto something?!?!?!?!? F NO!! (I'm just a layman, so I don't KNOW anything!!)

Anyways, I think that you're wrong. Most kids see a DR. at least annually and then, there's a school nurse that sees them at one point or another.

"Over weight" and morbid obesity are not the same. "Over" weight may lead to morbid obesity.

Over weight is caused by lots of things....poor eating habits, too much of the "wrong" foods for the specific individual, genetics, school/work lunches, dorm food, lack of exercise, emotional eating, too much beer/alcohol. And you are right, Thor...over weight is not always the fault of the child, though in some cases, it may be. Too many other factors can contribute to "over" weight.

Personally, as much as I detested it...I think taking PE out of the schools, was wrong. At least when I was a kid, and forced to take it, even all through high school, we all got almost one hour a day of exercise. How many kids even walk to school these days?

I haven't had kids eating school lunches in years, as the youngest has been out of HS for 10 years. I do remember when they were young, and eating lunch at school with them...the lunches were just as nasty as they were when I was a kid. There were two choices of the "entree", and everything else was plopped on the tray, whether it was wanted or not. I didn't have vending machines at all in school, and there were some when my kids were in HS, but they were restricted to when they could get anything from them as they were only in the cafeteria, and they could only get to them during lunch period.

Morbid obesity is 100 pounds over the average weight. A 14 yr old child does not usually gain 100 pounds in 1 year...unless there is something else wrong. Therefore a pediatrician, most likely would have seen the child at least once, if not several times, during the weight gaining period.

I know what you have been through with yourself, and not only were you mis-diagnosed/undiagnosed, you were mis-treated by your doctor. While you have/had symptoms, tests were needed to accurately diagnose you, right? The fact that the doctor wasn't willing to listen to you, was the doctor's fault. There's a whole bunch of them that are not nearly as good as they should be and though they may be legends in their own minds....there are some that shouldn't even be practicing medicine.

I don't think you can compare your situation to that of an obese child. Obesity is visible....to pretty much anyone, not just a doctor. The cause of the obesity is not, that must be determined either through medical testing,  Q&A, observation.

If there is not a medical condition to cause it, then the only other base cause of morbid obesity, is food intake. Something has to trigger and/or contribute to the excessive food intake. If a parent isn't going to correct it, why shouldn't it be the kid's doctor?

I have a problem saying the "school nurse" should be a "determiner"...because I was one of the "school nurses" at my kids' elementary school, for years...and my only training was going to the Red Cross every three years for Advanced First Aid training! I know I have read and heard on tv about some school system, that is now sending notes home with the "over weight" kids to notify the parents the kid is overweight. I think that's a very wrong approach for a school system to take. Handing a kid a note like that at school, and other kids knowing about it - which they apparently did, from the reports I have seen, is just contributing to any emotional problems the kids may already have by being overweight.

[Thor]

Let's go back to your initial statement........

A 14yr old who needs two seats because of obesity....has parents that need to be charged with child abuse.

Until abuse  (or more likely, neglect) has been proven, it's dangerous to suggest that because that's what Liberals and Progressives would do. They WANT the State to run people's lives. That sounds EXACTLY like what you would want. Once those allegations are made and child services intervenes, a parents life has just become a living hell. Again, YOU don't know why the teen is morbidly obese. It could be something well beyond the parent's control. If anything, the family physician should be able to handle that matter, HOPEFULLY. Just like alcoholism, compulsive overeating can be just as bad. Then there's the whole hormone and glandular thing. IMO, parents rights are almost as sacrosanct as the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.

[vesta111]

Let's go back to your initial statement........
Until abuse  (or more likely, neglect) has been proven, it's dangerous to suggest that because that's what Liberals and Progressives would do. They WANT the State to run people's lives. That sounds EXACTLY like what you would want. Once those allegations are made and child services intervenes, a parents life has just become a living hell. Again, YOU don't know why the teen is morbidly obese. It could be something well beyond the parent's control. If anything, the family physician should be able to handle that matter, HOPEFULLY. Just like alcoholism, compulsive overeating can be just as bad. Then there's the whole hormone and glandular thing. IMO, parents rights are almost as sacrosanct as the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.

Debk, both you and Thor are correct until one looks at genetics.

Much has to be thought about bone structure and family history.

Look back on family and friends with multiple children and there are differences in each one. The magical part  of birth has one child big boned and another very small boned.  Each has a unique personality and predisposition to any disease or illness that someone as a passed ancestor had unknowingly passed on.    This is why Doctors want a family history from you.

It cannot be food children eat if all children eat the same thing in a family with 3 kids.  2 of the kids are skinny and one is over weight. 

Has to be metabolism and inherited genes.

If one child of 4 feet tall with small bones weighs 80 pounds why not figure a sibling at that height and big boned would NOT weight more.  Activity's comes in here, a child that has a sedentary life will gain weight from fat, but a brother that is into sports will weigh more do to muscle mass weigh es more then fat.

I have met a couple of young men that wanted to join the military but were turned down because of their weight.

They had to get a water test at that time to determin how much fat caused them to weigh over the limit.

Now to loose 30 pounds would involve loss of mussel mass.  The Navy took them and assigned them as torpedo men on a Submarine.