Parents who wilfully permit their child to become seriously overweight are guilty of child neglect

Firstly, just to be clear, I am not a hateful person and I don't have anything against any of the type of people I listed in my opening paragraph. For example, I am very fond of my fine neighbor, Mr. Leroy MacAroon, who is a retarded, alcoholic, Ogoun-worshipping, bitch-slapping pimp from Ghana who lives next door with his charming wife, Mary, who is a racist, urine-soaked, Mormon crack-whore with an extensive collection of Michael Jackson records ;) Moving on, I certainly agree that parents that neglect their children by allowing them to become dangerously malnourished should be prosecuted, as indeed they are, but I also contend that parents that allow their children to become dangerously overweight should also be prosecuted. I also agree that kids come in all shapes and sizes but if a child turns up at school looking like its recently escaped from a Nazi concentration camp and starts rifling through bins for food, it's time to investigate. Similarly, if a child turns up at school looking like a sumo-wrestling midget and is carrying a family-sized bucket of fried chicken and a Black Forest gateaux to keep him going between breakfast and his mid-morning snack, together with a note from his mother excusing him from PE, then alarm bells should also start ringing. My opponent posted the following list of excuses for a child being overweight: "-Emotional disturbance -Feeling there unwanted, or a disappointment -Feeling like they aren't wanted, or loved. -Heartbreak. -lost of a loved one. -Like my opponent does from all I've read (Bullying) -junk food cheaper then healthy food, more affordable to buy the junk food. " These issues are not new or unique: they effect children of all family backgrounds and always have - but it is only recently that childhood obesity has become such a huge problem - a hundred years ago parents didn't have access to junk food and cars so kids ate fresh, wholesome food and kept fit because they walked everywhere. Think about it: when you last saw a picture of starving children in an African refugee camp, did you see any fat kids amongst them? By the way, it is a myth that healthy food is expensive: fresh fruit and vegetables are cheaper than pizzas, fried chicken or burgers - and water and milk are both cheaper than soda pops! Of course, preparing real food is more effort than ordering a pizza or taking the car to a drive-thru restaurant and this, I suspect, is the real reason overweight people eat so much junk food. The reality is that children become overweight because they eat too much and do too little exercise [1] and whose fault is that? The people that give them junk food to eat, who drive them around in cars rather than making them walk or cycle; the people who let them stay indoors and play video games instead of playing outside: those people are their parents. No responsible parent would buy their children alcohol and cigarettes: everybody know how damaging to their health they would be in the long term, so surely the same principle should apply to the food they are bought and they lifestyle they lead? After all, obesity causes: * Diabetes * Heart disease * High blood pressure * Arthritis * Indigestion * Gallstones * Some cancers (eg, breast and prostate cancers) * Snoring and sleep apnoea * Stress, anxiety, and depression * Infertility Children don't know any better, they rely on their parents for guidance and any parent who causes their children any of the above conditions is clearly guilty of neglect and should be duly punished. Thank you. [1] . http://www.parenting.com... [2] . http://www.bbc.co.uk...