A pair of researchers have come up with a scary new twist on
dealing with the childhood obesity epidemic. Dr. David Ludwig
and attorney Lindsey Murtagh of the Harvard School of Public
Health say the government should have the power to remove
severely overweight children from their parents and place them
in foster care. Writing this week in the Journal of the American
Medical Association, the two said that "state intervention may
serve the best interests of many children with life-threatening
obesity, comprising the only realistic way to control harmful
behaviors." Shockingly, these two researchers aren't alone. Meme
Roth of the National Action Against Obesity says parents who
enable obesity are child abusers just like those who don't feed
their children. Obviously childhood obesity is a problem.
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention,
nearly one in six (17 percent) American children and adolescents
are obese. About 32 percent of children ages 2 to 19 are
overweight and 12 percent are consi