yolland
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(CBS' website has a video clip briefly reviewing the story followed by the brief interview with the mother--who is clearly also obese, though nowhere near as badly as the boy.)CBS News, June 25
A mother is being charged with neglecting her obese teenage son, raising issues about whether the government has the right to intervene in one's family life.
Born and raised in South Carolina, Alexander Draper grew up to reach a dangerous 555 pounds by the age of 14. That's when law enforcement stepped in. "The first and foremost concern is Alexander's health," Lt. Shea Smith told CBS News.
Alexander's mother, Jerri Gray, was charged with unlawful neglect of a child for allowing him to become obese. "There have been opportunities to get Alexander some treatment over the course of the last several months and unfortunately some of those things have not been taken advantage of," Smith said. But Gray, released from jail Monday on $50,000 bond, says she does not have enough money to get her son the treatment he needs.
Alexander is in the custody of the Department of Social Services, who in a statement to CBS News said they only intervene when "health care professionals believe a child is at risk of harm...Obviously her son is certainly in need of some medical attention," Lt. Smith said.
Jerri Gray and her defense attorneys, Kim and Grant Varner, appeared on The Early Show Thursday to discuss the situation. Asked how his weight gain got so out of control, Gray said, "Well, a lot of times it had to do with lifestyle. A lot of times I had to work fulltime second shift or fulltime, third shift. And I wasn't home a lot." Gray told guest host and "Britain's Got Talent" judge Amanda Holden she had been monitoring her son's diet, but that there were times she had to purchase fast food, when she'd have to sleep between shifts. Asked if there are steps she could've taken earlier to have helped him not reach that level of weight, Gray said, "When I had a second shift hob, I would've rather been home, so that I could've spent more time focusing on preparing more low-fat type-meals."
While Alex is under state care right now, Gray believes her son needs to be with her. "Mentally he needs to be with me. We both need to be included together in whatever program that they have to offer so that we both can benefit from it. So as our lives go on together, then we will have learned how to control it and keep it under control."
From Googling for a couple other articles on this story, it sounds as if there may still be some dispute as to what extent the mother failed to cooperate with Social Service directives to get her son into a professional weight-loss program...she asserts that when she tried to enroll him in a local hospital's pediatric weight-loss program which they'd referred her to at one point, she was told he was too overweight for what the program was intended for; while Social Services asserts that they'd secured him an expenses-paid slot in an inpatient pediatric weight-loss program in New Hampshire at another point and she refused to send him away. Apparently her lawyer also intends to argue that there was past evidence the boy may have underlying medical problems exacerbating his weight gain, and that this wasn't properly followed up by either his doctor or Social Services.
In principle, Social Services' response here seems reasonable enough to me, except for the fact that they're apparently not allowing Ms. Gray to visit or even telephone her son (perhaps for security reasons--she'd initially fled the state with him to keep them from taking him--but it's a bit hard to see how this could be 'good' for him). Extreme obesity is a dangerous medical condition, and people with dangerous medical conditions need help now, not just good intentions and occasional gestures at doing something. And I don't buy the idea that her work hours unavoidably prevented her from ensuring her son's meals and snacks at home would be healthful enough to prevent extreme weight gain--though I can certainly see how her wish for a program geared towards families rather than individuals (perhaps, for instance, with meal planning and preparation tips for parents who've never been taught how to feed multiple people healthfully on a budget) might be an excellent, even essential, resource here.
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