Too fat to adopt
A man has been told he and his wife cannot adopt children because he is so fat that the authorities fear he will die, he said Monday.
Damien Hall, who stands six feet, one inch tall, weighs 24 and a half stone. He therefore has a body mass index (BMI) of more than 42 and is thus considered morbidly obese.
Those crazy Brits use the bizarre “stone” unit for weight. Here in the real world Mr. Hall weighs 343 pounds.
This story is deeply troubling. The state has the ability, if not the obligation, to protect juveniles from overtly dangerous home lives. Children shouldn’t be reared by rapists, destitute drug addicts, or murders, for example. They would simply be better off in the state’s custody.
The Brits, though, are not denying the adoption because the father poses a direct risk to the child. They denied the adoption because the parent may die prematurely. Just think about the precedent. If they can deny you the ability to adopt because they think your weight makes you an unfit parent it isn’t a far cry to think that they may actually take children away from their birth parents for the same reason. If a morbidly obese man is a threat to the welfare of an adopted child wouldn’t he be a threat to his own child?
What about people who are genetically predisposed to dangerous, possibly lethal forms of cancer? They might die early as well. Will nanny staters force such tests upon would-be or new parents and react accordingly out of the child’s best interests?
While the loss of a parent is terrible, it amounts to trauma. Guess what, life is full of trauma. Do we really want the government making such decisions – thrusting themselves into our lives in this magnitude – in order to shield us from trauma?
And while we’re on the subject of fatties… I hate – HATE – the BMI calculation. I’m 6′1″, 225 lb. My BMI tells me I’m at the upper edge of “overweight,” close to obese. I could stand to lose a few pounds, I admit, but there is no way I’m borderline obese. Back in college when I lifted and did cardio for two to three hours a day I weighed about 185. And I was very lean. If I had lost any more weight I would have looked gaunt. But according to the BMI calculator I was at the extreme high end of normal, nearly overweight. Of course, Tom Cruise is fat, too, according to the BMI.
Oh, and one more story dealing with the British nanny state and fatties. Britain is creating some kind of food police that will send government officials out into peoples homes to tell them how to cook. I’m not kidding. No, they aren’t going to tell them how to cook and make British food taste better. They’re going to tell them how much to cook. Freedom lovers don’t want government in our bedroom, but what about our kitchens?
