Hitting kids is a crime - feeding them junk should be too

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23: The other day I was in a supermarket and watched a large girthed woman with a whiny six-year-old boy lose it.

She grabbed him vigorously by the shoulder and shook him into silence. She raised her voice, and if it wasn’t for the fact that people were watching, I am certain she would have slapped the child.

Which, as we all know now, is called corporal punishment, recognized in law as such, and is a punishable offence because it constitutes assault.

Similarly, I can’t go out tomorrow and smack someone in the mouth, or deliver a life-threatening blow to their external body, because the law legislates against abuse and punishes it with incarceration. Parents too can no longer beat up on their kids for any reason.

The National Association of School Nurses in the US defines this corporal punishment as “the intentional infliction of physical abuse.

It may include methods such as hitting, slapping, punching, kicking, pinching, shaking, use of various objects (paddles, belts, sticks, or others), or painful body postures.”

That last example sounds a lot like the discomfort obese people suffer all the time.

So here we are. We see a Bermudian mother on the threshold of abusing her son physically, which we know is a criminal offence.

This particular woman stopped short — yes — but for argument’s sake, let’s suppose she didn’t.

She would have been in violation of the corporal punishment law and would have abused her son, therefore committing a criminal offence.

But that wasn’t the issue that struck me. Let’s call it as it is. She was fat. She was a walking time bomb. An incredibly poor example of how to teach her children to live, and clearly her lifestyle made her that way.

More specifically again, her nutritional intake made her this unhealthy.

Internal abuse?

Which provoked the thought: Is corporal punishment limited to external abuse of a child, or can the poor nutritional intake many parents on this island ram down their kids’ throats be considered as punishable by law too?

We know that what is fed to kids, especially if it is a sustained diet of junk food, is harming their health and must be looked at as a deadly form of abuse.

We know now as a scientific fact that overweight parents pass on their propensity to become obese to their children through nutritional neglect and learned behaviour.

And we know that obesity is life-threatening, is unhealthy, is not the way God wants us to be and when imposed upon ignorant young lives is a form of abuse.

“Poor nutrition is clearly detrimental to the health of a growing person. I can clearly see how you can relate poor parental choices to neglect and abuse,” said Dr. Benjamin Lau, who helps to run a weight loss programme at Point Finger Road Medical Center in Paget. A groundbreaking study in Nature in 2008, demonstrated that the total body fat cell number is set for life by the age of about 20. Being overweight as a child likely increases the fat cell number.

“This suggests that obesity as a child may be a life sentence for all its social and devastating ill-health effects,” added Dr. Lau

“Essentially, too much sugar, carbohydrate and processed food overloads the liver and pancreas and will increase the risk of metabolic syndrome, type II diabetes, as well as cancer and early death,” the doctor explained.

But can adults who feed their kids diets lacking greens, proteins, fruit, and so on, but feed them instead on diets containing sugars, oils, and deep fried excuses for meats, or simply too much food, be held accountable in a court of law for the abuse they impose on their child? A joint clinical report by the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Child Abuse and Neglect and the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Nutrition outlines three indicators of neglect:

“Intentional withholding of food from the child; strong beliefs in health and/or nutrition regimens that jeopardize a child’s well-being; and family that is resistant to recommended interventions despite a multidisciplinary team approach.”

It should be adding intentional over-feeding of deep fried and sugar-loaded food.

But are you a criminal though?

 In pretty much all jurisdictions across the world the answer is no.

You can almost hear a bunch of Bermudian parents heaving a collective sigh of relief.

But you are not off the hook.

Defining abuse historically has been difficult because professional groups (for example, child protective services, court systems, health care providers) can’t decide on a set criteria leading to inconsistencies in policies, practice, and research.

This inconsistency also leads to variability in the way abused children cases are handled.

The debate over a definition of abuse, centres on a lack of consensus in answering these questions:

What are the minimum requirements associated with caring for a child?

What action or inaction by a parent or other caregiver constitutes abusive behaviour?

Must the parent’s or caregiver’s action or inaction be intentional?

What impact does the action or inaction have on the health, safety, and well-being of the child?

What constitutes “failure or inability to provide” appropriate food, shelter, protection, or clothing?

Is the action or inaction a result of poverty rather than neglect?

It’s clearly a minefield.

For the record, I think belting a child is abuse. And so is over-feeding a child with foods laden with high fructose corn syrup, excessive sugar and salt and then not supplying the child with their necessary share of greens and fruits too.

External abuse is illegal; internal not so as yet.

It’s all food for thought, actually.

Ric Chapman is executive producer of Songopoly TV.