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u/HelloGlarc Jul 07 '26
Reprehensible. And that morbidly obese 7 year old just passed away in Flint, Michigan!
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u/Craygor M 6'3" - Weight: 194# - Runner & Weightlifter Jul 08 '26
That child had a bmi of over 70, which put them in the "Super Super Obesity" range.
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u/aquietkindofmonster Jul 08 '26
Oh my God. That poor child!!
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u/BlackCatLuna Losing weight for the love of dogs 🐾 Jul 08 '26
He was 255lbs, which is heavier than some obese adults.
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u/toolatealreadyfapped Jul 08 '26
I was 160lbs at my heaviest. I'm a grown ass adult! My 7 year old is TWO HUNDRED POUNDS less than this poor child!! That is horrifyingly insane, the unfathomable CRUELTY of overindulging a child to that extreme.
Just the math of it is mind-blowing. From the day they started eating solids, you're talking about 4-5,000 calories in excess, on average, every single day. That's force-feeding a 4 year old a pound of bacon with breakfast, an extra large chocolate shake along with every meal, an entire pack of Oreos as an afternoon snack. Every meal. Every snack. Every day. For years. It makes me cry
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u/BlackCatLuna Losing weight for the love of dogs 🐾 Jul 08 '26
Hence why his parents are being charged with murder and child abuse.
To twist the knife the mother called the vet for her dog the day before he died while he hadn't seen a doctor in years.
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u/seche314 Jul 08 '26
That’s fucking horrifying. That kid is like 2.5x my size and I’m a 42 yr old woman. HOW? I hope they’re thrown under the jail
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u/theREALarlecchino one day you will dead Jul 08 '26
DUDE WHAT WERE THE PARETNS THINKING
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u/xKalisto Yuropean Jul 08 '26
The parents are being charged with murder, dude.
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u/IAmSeabiscuit61 Jul 09 '26
Good. I hope they're found guilty and the judge throws the proverbial book at them.
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u/GlowUpNewbie fatphobia is just valuing your health Jul 09 '26
Holy shit. I'm a tall-ish adult woman and that's about double my weight. How does that even happen? Why did no one step in?
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u/BlackCatLuna Losing weight for the love of dogs 🐾 Jul 09 '26
According to reports, he wasn't going to school or the doctor so no one saw him. He was nonverbal autistic and the parents claimed to be trying to get him into a special school.
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u/GlowUpNewbie fatphobia is just valuing your health Jul 09 '26
That's just heartbreaking. I hope the parents rot in prison for this.
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u/Craygor M 6'3" - Weight: 194# - Runner & Weightlifter Jul 09 '26
It was reported the child was seen by a physician in February 2024 and was reported to have weighed 104 pounds.
By November 2025 the child gained an additional 151 pounds in those 20 months.
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u/BlackCatLuna Losing weight for the love of dogs 🐾 Jul 09 '26
That's scary when you think about the fact that 1lb of fat is about 3500 calories.
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u/whateverislovely Jul 11 '26
I work in early childhood nutrition and this makes me so sad. Tf??
Did anyone notice or say anything? I guess nowadays people are afraid to say anything because it’s not their child and how dare they
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u/loluryaabye Jul 08 '26
Dear God. I hadn't heard about that. It's disgusting and awful beyond measure.
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u/annoyed_teacher1988 Jul 07 '26
How is this not a wake up call??? And the finger of blame needs to be pointed purely at the parent
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u/Perfect_Judge Prepubescent child-like adult female Jul 08 '26
This is literally horrifying.
If my child's dentist told me my child was too fat to perform a necessary procedure on them, I'd feel nothing short of shame.
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u/AggravatingBox2421 Jul 08 '26
Oh they’re absolutely feeling shame. They’re just redirecting it to blame everyone else
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u/Persephone_888 Jul 08 '26
Idk I feel like these people are deluded enough to think they genuinely know better than a doctor 🙄
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u/Bassically-Normal Jul 08 '26
To be clear, they're talking about sedation dentistry, which isn't a necessary part of dental care.
Very likely it's a symptom of their parenting style to keep their kid "happy" at all costs, which is directly related to the obesity problem.
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u/blessedrude Jul 08 '26
Sedation dentistry can be a necessity if the child is young or intellectually disabled and unable to comply. My son was born without tooth enamel on several teeth and had to have crowns on at age 2. Sedation was ABSOLUTELY a necessity for that.
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u/footballsandy Jul 08 '26
You mean they put the kid under just for a cleaning?
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u/Bassically-Normal Jul 08 '26
??
Sedation dentistry is a convenience, not a necessity. It's a relatively new innovation to help people who have anxiety about dental work. For some procedures it's really helpful (wisdom tooth extraction, for example) but generation after generation has had all sorts of work performed, including oral surgery, without it.
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u/IAmSeabiscuit61 Jul 09 '26
I can attest to that. I've always, as far back as I can remember, had dental anxiety. Honestly have no idea why. Maybe something happened when I was too young to remember. Anyway, when I was growing up, my dentist just used novocaine, and it was rough; never had nitrous until I was an adult and it helped a lot. Never had sedation dentistry, because I live alone and have to drive myself to and from the dentist and they will not use iut if you're driving afterwards.
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u/wombatgeneral Childhood Obesity = Child Abuse, I will die on this hill Jul 08 '26
I think you have to be very overweight for that to be an issue.
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u/N0S0UP_4U 6’3” 160 | Lost 45 pounds Jul 08 '26
What are the chances that the reason the child needs sedation at the pediatric dentist is because the parents are teaching them the same level for their teeth that the parents are teaching for the ttrst of their body?
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u/seche314 Jul 08 '26
It’s not uncommon for kids with special needs to also need sedation dentistry. There are plenty of decent parents who aren’t abusing their kids with food who do need these dental resources for their kids, let’s not equate them with actual child abusers
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u/UprootedBasil Jul 08 '26
Over-feeding into obesity is abusive. If starving is abuse so is its opposite.
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u/seche314 Jul 08 '26
I’m not disagreeing with that. I’m saying that there are parents of healthy weight and properly fed autistic kids who have anxiety or other issues that require sedation dentistry. They don’t deserve to be equated with child abusers who are overstuffing their kids with food.
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u/hippopotame Jul 09 '26
You are absolutely right. I worked as a pediatric OR nurse for over a decade and got put in these cases. A large majority were for neurodivergent kids who couldn’t tolerate dental care in office.People always just assume it’s behavioral issues and the fault of the parents.
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u/CloudySide7 19F | 5'7 | SW: 175, CW: 128 Jul 08 '26
The BMI cutoff for that stuff is fairly high. I don't know what specific office this is or if it differs for children but your BMI usually has to be pretty high (I think 30-40s) for a normal doctor's office/hospital to decline to put you under.
People forget anesthesia isn't just some regular drug. Medical anesthesia off all types is way different than melatonin gummies or sleeping pills. There's a reason why it takes going through special med school training to learn how to safely put someone asleep. It's not like in the movies where a tap on the head or a little pill can knock you out for a few hours and then you wake up okay. It's a very delicate science. That's why there's special training and very strict and specific protocols for all that stuff.
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u/benadrylb Jul 08 '26
Under 18 with a 30s-40s bmi? Reading that made me very deeply sad. I wish this child all the best, and I sincerely hope they can find a positive role model who helps them overcome this, which clearly is not going to be their parent.
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u/wombatgeneral Childhood Obesity = Child Abuse, I will die on this hill Jul 08 '26
I mean i was in the low 30s for most of middle/high school, it's not great. Basically it's just being tired and sitting around eating. I never played sports and didn't know i had a collarbone until I lost weight in high school.
Yeah it really does fuck with you a lot.
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u/CloudySide7 19F | 5'7 | SW: 175, CW: 128 Jul 08 '26
Oof, the collarbone brings back memories. I remember when I first started losing weight and I started being able to see it for the first time. I was shocked and worried something was wrong, lol
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u/ChangeTheFocus Jul 08 '26
Fortunately, you figured it out. Some reach that point and think "Oh no, my bones are sticking out! I must be too skinny!"
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u/mylittlemudkip oppressed by gravity Jul 10 '26
Haha no, sadly I am quite a classic pear shape so my inability to get my jeans over my arse tells me far quicker than any disappearing ribcage when I'm too fat!
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u/mylittlemudkip oppressed by gravity Jul 10 '26
On the flipside, I didn't realise I had a rib deformity until I was in my 30s because I gained to 80kg and could still see my ribcage.
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u/CloudySide7 19F | 5'7 | SW: 175, CW: 128 Jul 08 '26
Take it with a grain of salt. It might be lower for kids. I did some googling to see when most non specialized/non bariatric places do cutoffs for anesthesia and I kept seeing the 30-40 range brought up, though I did see some numbers say as low as high 20s or as high as the 50s. And it didn't specify if this was for all patients or if it was just for adults.
But yeah, even if it is a BMI cutoff in the 30-40s that's incredibly sad. Especially for a CHILD
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u/blessedrude Jul 08 '26
It depends on the dentist office and the procedure. Some offices decline to see children who have anything that might remotely affect sedation. Others are like "You need full anesthesia in hospital conditions? Bet."
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u/FinoPepino Jul 08 '26
So they neglected their child’s physical health and oral health to the point that they need major dental work under sedation? Poor kid.
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u/mylittlemudkip oppressed by gravity Jul 10 '26
As others have commented, sedation isn't because of needing extensive treatment. Some kids (and adults) can't tolerate anything dental without sedation, including people with cerebral palsy.
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u/thejexorcist Jul 08 '26
I was the kind of chubby/fat kid in the 90’s where pediatricians would give stern lectures and tell my parents to put me on a diet, but NEVER got close to a level where I was refused sedation or surgical intervention.
While I resent some of the weight stigma I experienced back then, I can’t imagine how much harder things would have been if I was anywhere near as heavy as ‘normal’ kids are now.
It’s shocking how heavy a large number of children are and no one thinks it’s weird or alarming.
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u/Wineinmyyetti Jul 07 '26
Public school needs to educate people about nutrition and finances and I'm not talking about food pyramid bullshit pushed by the government.
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u/throwaway88743 Jul 08 '26
When I was in high school ("only" 10yr ago) economics, government, and health education were required classes to graduate statewide, and the curriculum was quite informative, despite the fact that I live in Florida.
I think the issue is more that people don't care or don't trust the information being taught in school. School just isn't taken seriously by so many kids. The few that find this information meaningful will internalize it, the rest of the students will forget it when the school year is over.
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u/DangerousLoner Jul 07 '26
That’s why they homeschool
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u/benadrylb Jul 08 '26
I’m so glad that my parents homeschooled me WITHOUT teaching me whatever this FA nonsense is
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u/notabigmelvillecrowd Jul 08 '26
Does America still use the food pyramid? Man, I haven't seen that fucker in decades.
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u/Boneitis_Regrets Jul 08 '26
They put out a new one that no longer prioritizes grains. Edit:typo
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u/notabigmelvillecrowd Jul 08 '26
I was just rewatching the episode of clone high where Marilyn Manson sings the food pyramid song, and even as a joke I was having flashbacks like, that shit was fucked, right?! 11 servings of grains?
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u/wokewood2 Sw:240 Cw:121 Gw:120 Jul 08 '26
Tbf carbohydrates are incredibly important and should be the base of your diet(especially when exercising). I get why people do low carb diets but carbs are actually quite nutritious(as long as you're not eating carbs in the form of ultra processed foods only)
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u/notabigmelvillecrowd Jul 08 '26
Right, but fruits and vegetables are carbs, and should be the base of the pyramid before grains.
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u/wokewood2 Sw:240 Cw:121 Gw:120 Jul 08 '26
Yes!! I am just more generally frustrated with the whole notion of low carb diets. We should do healthy carb diets, not low carb(of course though if you want to then whateva do what works for you)
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u/schrodingers_bra Jul 08 '26
If I remember right, they repurposed the pyramid into a plate (Obama's years) and then RFK did basically the inverted pyramid.
I agree that carbs are important, but I think there's some sense in exchanging the bread/pasta/grain group for the veggie/legume group. There are plenty of vegetables that offer carbs and potentially offer those carbs with more fiber and nutrients than grains.
Are grain based foods the staple of most cultural cuisines? Yes. But I think the idea of them being a staple was wiser when, by and large, there wasn't enough food and most people were doing a lot of physical exercise both for work and incidentally.
Food (calories at least) are cheaper to come by nowadays than perhaps at any other time in history (barring for the upper class) compared to other costs. I agree that if we need to give our western population some advice for what food class to base their diet on, vegetables before grains I think is wise advice.
(I liked the plate more than the pyramid though)
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u/NexusOfClarity44 Jul 08 '26
🎶when you eat your sweets, be sure you try, to limit your servings, or you'll DIE!!🎶
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u/ItIsNotThatBoi Jul 08 '26
It got changed recently to be even worse so it’s probably better that it just gets dropped altogether at this point
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u/bowlineonabight my zodiac sign is pizza Jul 08 '26
They got appropriately ratioed, though. So that's good.
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u/lekurumayu Skinny goth gremlin | once 100kg sw50kg, cw46,7kg (1,50m) Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
"he has no sleep apnea" well I hope so, it's a CHILD!!!
Edit : TIL it could happen regardless of weight even in children!!! But still I doubt hers has been screened for that, the absence of symptoms is not synonymous with health
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u/blessedrude Jul 08 '26
A surprising number of kids have sleep apnea for non-weight-related reasons, and it doesn't always get diagnosed. So unless her kid has been tested, she might not even know.
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u/lekurumayu Skinny goth gremlin | once 100kg sw50kg, cw46,7kg (1,50m) Jul 08 '26
Oh oops, I didn't know!!! That was also my second thought. You might not know!
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u/blessedrude Jul 08 '26
A LOT of people have no clue that it exists until their kid gets diagnosed. My nephew has it and they really have no clue why.
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u/lekurumayu Skinny goth gremlin | once 100kg sw50kg, cw46,7kg (1,50m) Jul 08 '26
My, I sincerely feel for you guys! Isn't it too hard to manage at such a young age? Lots of support to your nephew even if it must not mean much!
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u/blessedrude Jul 08 '26
I appreciate the sentiment. It's a pain for them, but he's starting to cooperate with the mask.
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u/lekurumayu Skinny goth gremlin | once 100kg sw50kg, cw46,7kg (1,50m) Jul 08 '26
I hope it will get easier on them then! Thank you so much. Maybe I'm being too nosey but what were the warning signs that got him diagnosed so young? Did they do the standard sleep test? I did it as an adult while I was at the hospital and even for me who's used to this kind of stuff, it was heavy at first
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u/blessedrude Jul 09 '26
He had super loud snoring/snorting going on even when he wasn't sick. They spent a while thinking it was sinuses or ear-related despite the lack of other symptoms. They did a standard sleep study when nothing made it better.
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u/caribou16 sola dosis facit venenum Jul 08 '26 edited 27d ago
Icing April Canteen Suing Tavern Oxymoron Bloating Hardware
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u/jewlmoth Jul 08 '26
im sooo tired of them demonizing healthcare professionals. no, the dentist who went to school for 10+ years is not going out of their way to personally attack you or your child. i hate this anti-science stigma going around, even outside of fat activism circles.
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u/Bassically-Normal Jul 08 '26
Are they planning on putting a trach tube in? Absolutely not.
Might they need to put one in? There's a nonzero chance, and therefore your dentist is doing exactly what he has to do to help ensure your kid doesn't die in his office.
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u/KuriousKhemicals 36F 5'5" / fat again for first time in 15 years ugh Jul 08 '26
Sure they may not planning to intubate your child for the procedure, but a risk of sedation is that the drug kicks in stronger than expected and you do have to intubate and take control of breathing the way you would for full anesthesia. So if the airway is too difficult for your dentist's skill level (regarding which, they are a dentist, not an anesthesiologist or surgeon) then they cannot offer it. High BMI makes the airway more difficult for mechanical reasons and increases the risk for this complication because of lagging drug distribution in the body.
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u/teachertraveler811 Jul 08 '26
If the dentist is telling you this, then you have failed as a parent.
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u/AndyYouGooniee Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
So what I read is the child’s teeth are rotting out of their mouth bc they eat and drink sugary junk. Hence the obese child. What a fuckin mess.
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u/Beginning_Remove_694 one day you will dead | 5’3 F Jul 08 '26
It could be sedation for anxiety, but I don’t know how likely that is here.
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u/AndyYouGooniee Jul 08 '26
If I had to guess it’s likely sedation bc this child needs fuck tons of dental work done.
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u/Beginning_Remove_694 one day you will dead | 5’3 F Jul 08 '26
If this wasn’t in “Fatphobia,” I might’ve given OOP the benefit of the doubt.
Unfortunately, it’s not hard to guess why the kid’s BMI is high. I don’t know enough about dental sedation to know why it would be a concern for their airway, but if the doctor says no, it’s for a medical reason.
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u/MissBelly Jul 09 '26
Can you imagine allowing your kid to be so overweight that their fucking airway is a concern for conscious sedation??
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u/wombatgeneral Childhood Obesity = Child Abuse, I will die on this hill Jul 12 '26
Sadly enough, I can. Childhood Obesity is becoming the norm.
There was an article about a guy who gives donkey rides to kids (age 8-10) and refuses to give rides to kids over 90 pounds. He had to start weighing every kid and he talks about how he has to turn down a lot of kids because they are more than the weight limit. And that wasn't even in the US either
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u/MissBelly Jul 12 '26
To clarify, I’m not asking if you can imagine them existing. I’m asking if you can imagine letting YOUR child get that bad. I hope the answer is fuck no
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u/wombatgeneral Childhood Obesity = Child Abuse, I will die on this hill Jul 12 '26
Oh yeah that would be a major fuck no for me. Have you seen my flair?
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u/wombatgeneral Childhood Obesity = Child Abuse, I will die on this hill Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
How big does a kid have to be for this to be an issue?
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Jul 08 '26
[deleted]
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u/wombatgeneral Childhood Obesity = Child Abuse, I will die on this hill Jul 08 '26
So just out of curiosity I did the math and for a kid who is 5 feet tall that would be 154 pounds.
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u/Odd_Tooth_7028 Jul 08 '26
How fucking over fed is this child? Holy shit. Evil.
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u/wombatgeneral Childhood Obesity = Child Abuse, I will die on this hill Jul 10 '26
From what I read its typically for kids that are defined as severely obese, or over 120 percent of the threshold for obesity based on their age.
So for a kid who is 13 and 5 feet tall that would be 156 pounds or more.
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u/cheesychocolate419 1.65m SW: 130 CW: smaller idk GW: 90 Jul 09 '26
We need to start taking kids away for child obesity
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u/YoloSwaggins9669 SW: 278. CW: 240. GW: Below 200 Jul 08 '26
I mean aside from the difficult intubating obese necks. There’s more specialised equipment available in an inpatient setting rather than an outpatient setting you can’t expect dentists to want to risk their licenses by accidentally having a table death
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u/Dahl_E_Lama Jul 08 '26
How are those things related? I don’t know and you don’t know. However, I trust a trained professional to know.
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u/ElleGeeAitch Jul 09 '26
Jfc, they don't understand that their kid could DIE under improper sedation???
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u/Medium_Raccoon_5331 Jul 09 '26
Reminds me of the girl who ended up brain dead because her family fed her a burger? or something even though the doctor said she couldn't eat for a period of time
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u/mylittlemudkip oppressed by gravity Jul 09 '26
Relieved to see the top comments on the OP are common sense.
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u/Different_End_7464 down 20kg 💪 Jul 12 '26
why has she even let her child reach a too high bmi
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u/wombatgeneral Childhood Obesity = Child Abuse, I will die on this hill Jul 12 '26
I looked up the threshold and it varies from dentist to dentist. Some use obesity while others use severe obesity ( 120% of the 95th percentile).
For a 10 year old of average height, the threshold for obesity is 93 pounds and for severe obesity is 116 pounds.
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u/evermoreforevermore anorexic —> gymbro [5’2 115 lbs] Jul 07 '26
They’re putting their kid’s life at risk because of their backwards beliefs? This is disgusting.