CNN Fat Kid Story: A classic hang 'em out to dry.

So, I don't know how to link something, but on CNN.com, there's a story about a seven-year-old who weighs 254 pounds, and the county is threatening to take him away from his family.

Okay, that's sad.

However, in the clip, the reporter is interviewing the mother, who's talking about how she's so careful about what her son eats, she doesn't understand how he keeps growing.

There's a quick cut to his food log. No comment, just a scan. Breakfast, four scrambled eggs, etc. Lunch, five Vienna sausages, etc. Dinner, hamburger steak, etc. I mean, enough to feed a fucking army.

And the reporter is like, "Despite the diet, and despite physical activity" -- cut to fat kid trying to pick up a ball -- and I'm dying.

It's a textbook example of just letting people (in this case the mother, also giant) dig their own holes.

Done well, it's art.

 

Done badly, it's an exploitative freak show.

 

Well, yeah, that too.

 

I saw the same report and I thought I read the same thing on that piece of paper!

It's like freakin' Augustus Gloop. It's simple math: Less calories and exercise and he will lose weight. This whole, "I don't know how he's getting fat" thing is bogus. Unless it's a glandular problem, he has to be eating a lot of food.

 

I saw that story a while back.

Get a fuckin' grip mom, your son eats as much as two NFL linemen.

 

Did a photo capture from the video (Yes, I'm bored at work today).

The part about dinner is cut off but it said "Hamburger steak":

 

Yeah, I went back to watch it again to see if I was being cruel.

Sprite for breakfast? Now that's cruel.

 

There's got to either be something wrong with that list or the kid's got a gland problem.

 

diet sprite

 

What they don't mention are the Snickers bars, M&Ms, and chocolate bunnies he's hiding in his room. And how many ho-hos, ding dongs and oatmeal creampies is the kid woofing down each day at or after school?

 

Don't normal people call that water?

 

It's sad. The kid may indeed have a metabolism problem or some other factor contributing to his weight, but you can not gain weight if you are burning more calories than you consume -- it's impossible. 'Gland problems' might make you retain some weight, but you have to be eating 5,000 calories per day before that weight is on you.

That food log above, though, isn't way too much food (other than the four eggs, two should be more than enough) for a 7-year-old. So I'm calling BS on her story. That might be what she's feeding him now that TV cameras are on the scene, but he didn't get that size by eating those kind of meals. He got that size by eating 10 of those meals per day.

It's horribly poor parenting, IMO, but so is letting your kids watch 12 hours of TV per day. I'm not in favor of taking fat kids away from fat parents any more than I would be taking TV zombie kids away from TV zombie parents.

The problem, at least in my mind, comes when the kid is treated for years of obesity-related healthcare and the bill is passed on to you and me.