Is Child Obesity Child Abuse?

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Case of 555-Pound Boy Attracts National Attention

The case of a 555-pound South Carolina teenager has legal and health experts throughout the country considering whether child obesity is a form of child abuse, according to a report in USA Today.

Alexander Draper, 14, is now in foster care and his mother, Jerri Gray, was arrested in June and charged with criminal neglect. Gray, 49, said she was doing all she could to help her son lose weight. Her attorney said if his client is found guilty, it would "set a precedent that opens Pandora's box."

But with childhood obesity on the rise in the U.S., many states have begun to take legal action against parents. Still, criminal charges are rare.

In one case in 2007, a New York court ordered nutritional counseling, cooking classes and gym workouts for an adolescent girl who weighed 261 pounds.

In Gray's case, her attorney said his client followed nutritional guidelines set for her son by the state Department of Social Services, but that Alexander apparently got other food on his own. In June, Gray told CBS News that she works late shifts, which leaves her little time to prepare healthy meals for her son.

"There's a strong likelihood that this kid is going to school and could eat whatever he wanted to at school, because you've got friends who will help him buy food or will give him their leftovers," the attorney, Grant Varner, told USA Today.

But according to others, childhood obesity is a form of child abuse.

"If you gave your child a drug, you'd be held in the court. But if you kill them with food, that seems to be acceptable," said Ron Jones, a corporate wellness expert.

According to one report cited by USA Today, 30 percent of children in 30 states ages 10 to 17 are overweight or obese, with the rate hitting a high of 44.4 percent in Mississippi. The Centers for Disease Control said the number of obese children ages 6 to 11 more than doubled in the past 20 years, while the rate for adolescents more than tripled.

The difficulty in prosecuting parents of obese children is that most states require the child's health to be in imminent danger for criminal charges to be filed, Richard Balnave, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, told the newspaper.

The arrest warrant in the Gray case alleges that her son's weight was "serious and threatening to his health" and that she had placed him "at an unreasonable risk of harm."

In May, Gray failed to appear at a court hearing in which Alexander was to be turned over to foster care. Police later found the pair in Maryland and took them back to South Carolina, where Gray was released on a $50,000 bond, her attorney said.

Her case is still pending.


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