Mother loses custody & is charged with criminal neglect for allowing son to become morbidly obese

According to today's issue of USA Today, Jerri Gray, a 49 year old mother from Travelers Rest, South Carolina was arrested in June on a criminal neglect charge because her son weighed 555 pounds by the time he was fourteen years old. Her son was taken away from her and put into foster care.

Rather than appear in family court as she was supposed to, Gray fled with her son and was picked up in Baltimore and charged with custodial interference.

What has happened to Jerri Gray is rare but not new. In 2007 New York State charged the parents of a young adolescent named Brittany T. with neglect for allowing her to reach the weight of 261 pounds, although Brittany's parents were charged with a misdemeanor, while Jerri Gray has been charged with felonies that could result in significant prison time

According to the Child Welfare League of America, the court required Brittany's parents to purchase a gym membership and take her there several times a week. The court also ordered nutritional counseling and cooking classes for the family.

Child Protective Services in Chemung County, New York claimed that Brittany's parents did not fulfill the terms of the family court's mandates. Chemung County Family Court agreed with Child Protective Services, however, the Third Division of the Appellate Court overturned the decision made by family court.

Charging parents because of their children's morbid obesity has resulted in the expansion of neglect laws in the few states that have dealt with the issue. Morbid obesity is now considered a neglect category in most of the states that have charged parents with neglect for having severely overweight children.

People are split on whether or not morbid obesity is truly neglect. Those who support the idea say that if letting a child starve is neglect, then overfeeding a child, which leads to serious health problems, is also neglect.

Opponents point to genetic and medical problems that contribute to morbid obesity, factors that parents have no control over. Supporters, while admitting that those conditions exist, claim that they account for only a small number of children who are morbidly obese.

Probably the strongest argument that opponents of the idea that morbid obesity constitutes neglect is that society, not just parents, plays a large role in contributing to morbid obesity. Parents of morbidly obese children point to the junk food served in school cafeterias and in school vending machines. They also point to the power of television advertising. Many parents also say that no matter how well they feed their children and control their diet at home, children can obtain junk food easily and eat as much food as they want outside of the home, and that they have no control over it.

This seems particularly true of pre-adolescents and adolescent children. The case is similar to educational neglect. Parents often drive their children to school, watch them walk in the front door, and find out months later that they have been walking  right out the back door all along.

Jerri Gray claims that she did everything within her power to control her son's weight but he still continued to gain.

In the Chemung County, New York State case of Brittany T., the appellate court's decision which overturned the family court's decison had this to say:

"It is true that the child gained weight after being returned to respondents, but other factors outside of their control may well account for this increase. In that regard, it was established that, throughout
this period, the child – who undoubtedly has an eating disorder – consumed inappropriate foods at school when she was not subject to respondents' immediate supervision and control."

In the United States, with its abundance of food, morbid obesity cannot be considered neglect in the same way that starvation is. There is little in our society that parents can blame for neglecting to feed a child, but there is a lot to blame in our society for morbid obesity.

That's not to say that parents are blameless. Some parents do love their children to death by overfeeding them. Some do not provide proper nutrition. Others are absent too much and leave the child free to watch television and pig out on junk food.

Nevertheless, states should move slowly and cautiously into this area. Expanding neglect to encompass morbid obesity may open Pandora's Box, argues Jerri Gray's attorney, Grant Varner.

The focus on feeding children, or allowing children to be fed, too much, as well as on neglecting children through not feeding them enough does pose other questions. If parents can be charged for neglecting their child's education by not making sure they go to school, if parents can be charged with neglect for not providing them with enough food, clothing, shelter and material things, can parents be guilty of neglect for giving their children too much of these things?

We have all seen the devastation caused by not giving children enough, but most of us have also seen children who have become spoiled and ill equipped to face life because they have been given too much. We have seen children hurt by parents who say they will never amount to anything, but we have also seen children end up in mental hospitals because parents drove them to excel in sports and education.

For most of its history, Child Protective Services has focused on the poor. The vast majority of parents charged with neglect and abuse are poor. If giving your children too much of any good thing becomes neglect, then Child Protective Services will have to focus more on the wealthy and the tragic cases of children who are given too much or who are pushed to excel in a way that is not healthy.

The question raised by the case of Jerri Gray is a profound one - when does giving a child too much become as harmful as giving a child too little? It's a question that deserves serious consideration. We should not rush to criminalize more parents, however, until the question has been thoroughly examined.

Postscript: For those of you who think that childhood obesity is only a modern problem, note the following epitaph from the Baptist Church Cemetery in Stillwater, New York.

Hicks, Daniel D. T. son of Benjamin & Mary
d. July 17, 1827 11th yr
“His weight was 202 pounds”

“Ye who the power of God delight to trace,
And mark with joy each monument of grace,
Tread lightly oer this grave as ye explore,
The short and simple annals of the poor
A Child reposes underneath this sod
A Child to memory dear & dear to God.
Rejoice, ye shed the sympathetic tear,
Daniel D. T. Hicks, the friend of all lies buried here.”

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For more info: Read other articles by this author on child abuse, child neglect, Child Protective Services and family court.