What to Do About Fat Children? Make Them Wards of the State

ABC News covered this controversial suggestion:

Harvard University child obesity expert Dr. David Ludwig's recent claim that some parents should lose custody of their severely obese children has sparked outrage among families and professionals across the country....

Dr. David Orentlicher, co-director of Hall Center for Law and Health at Indiana University of School Law, also disagreed, saying that based on past instances, child protective service agencies might be far too quick to place overweight children in foster care.

A family in Albuquerque, N.M., disagreed with the idea, based not on any medical expertise but on a painful personal experience that they say tore the family apart more than a decade ago.

In a case that shocked many people across the country, 3-year-old Anamarie Regino, weighing 90 pounds, was taken from her outraged parents by government officials and placed in foster care.

"Literally, it was two months of hell. It seemed like the longest two months of my life," mother Adela Martinez said.

As it turned out, it was two unnecessary months of hell. Anamarie didn't improve at all in foster care, and she was returned to her parents. The young girl was later diagnosed with a genetic predisposition.

"They say it's for the well-being of the child, but it did more damage that any money or therapy could ever to do to fix it," Martinez said.

Anamarie, who is now 14, agreed....