A recent opinion piece in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggested that extremely obese children should be placed into foster care, penalizing parents for their role in their child’s condition. This could affect the roughly 2 million U.S. children who are classified as extremely obese and are at risk for conditions such as Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular problems and other serious health conditions.

The state of Georgia also recently put the blame for obese children on parents in a series of public service announcements called “Stop Sugarcoating.”  The ads, which showed overweight kids asking their parents “Why am I fat?”, are a controversial attempt to make parents take responsibility for their role in their child’s health problems.  Many health experts are critical of the ad campaign, saying that it can be counter-productive.

See one of the ads for yourself in this YouTube video.