This Way Madness (or Fatness, or Subscriptions) Lies

From the ever-interesting Spiked comes this true tale of state-sponsored terrorism against two parents from New Mexico whose daughter, Anamarie Martinez-Regino, become abnormally tall and heavy in her first three years. Despite desperate cooperation with medical authorities, the state ended up taking the girl away from the parents for a spell and placing her on restrictive diets and, effectively, putting her parents under total surveillance. A snippet:

Anamarie's saga helps reveal the lengths to which state power can be deployed in America today in the prosecution of the war on fat. Adela Martinez-Regino and Miguel Regino cannot allow their child to eat a spoonful of ice cream, or a piece of candy, or to drink a glass of fruit juice, without running a very real risk of having their child taken away from them once again. They and Ana live under this remarkably repressive regimen not because there is any medical evidence that it will protect their daughter's health, but simply because it gives the authorities a false but comforting sense that they are 'doing something' about what is, for them, a profoundly disturbing sight - the sight of an unusually large child.

Whole thing here. The August-September issue of Reason--on sale now--features a cover story titled, "The War on Fat: Is the size of your butt the government's business?"

If you subscribed to the mag that's been called "a fresh and nuanced antidote…[to] smash-mouth, left vs. right political discourse" and "the Redbook of the libertarian political movement," you'd already be getting the skinny on the war on fat. And you'd be enjoying the Sir Mix-A-Lot-inspired cover that at least one discriminating reader has called "brilliant."

Comments

[thoreau]

I'm not bothered by the principle of child protection and whatnot.

But I'm deeply bothered by the horror stories from the practice.

[Another Discriminating Reader]

That cover was sickening.

[Mike Casper]

In New Mexico a child is held hostage by a state agency by threatening parents with the child's removal because of a physical abnormality which the parents did not cause nor can anyone seemingly control. Other children are routinely taken from homes because of baseless allegations by nosey neighbors,jealous grandparents, non-custodial parents etc. The rationale seems to be on the surface a sensible one. Better to take the child and be sure. But is it really? What happens to a loving, caring family that has been publicly humiliated? How will they be treated in their neighborhoods and job places when it becomes known that they are suspected of child abuse? Even when the child is returned and no charges are filed? Will it be enough? Will the neighbors again let their kids play in the accused family's yard? Could it be that the nanny state will have 'saved' a child that didn't need saving and at the same time sowed the seeds of family destruction?

[Jennifer]

If the little girl were of normal height but weighed over a hundred pounds, then MAYBE I could see the need for it. Maybe. But as the article states, she was twice as tall as usual for her age, had all her milk teeth by age one and had thick, 'adult' hair on her head. This is obviously some hormonal abnormality, and I hope her parents sue and win a fortune.

[Malak]

Still waiting for my copy . . .