CMV: If you can't raise a child that's a healthy weight, you are a bad parent.

There's just no reason why a good parent would have an obese child. You have near complete control over what they eat if you have full custody.

I'd argue that this downplays the agency of the child. A parent's role is to provide food for their child, and try to teach them healthy eating habits. I only see them being bad parents if they are encouraging bad habits or knowingly providing sup bar nutrition. Children could be influenced by their peers or make bad choices outside of their parents' control.

Overweight Child - A parent packs their kid nutritious lunches, but at school the kid trades it for cake. The kid can't have sugary foods but mooches off their friends to get them. The child goes over to their friend's house and they gorge on soda together. The parents give their kid $5 for lunch everyday at the school cafeteria, and the kid buys pizza and fries everyday.

Underweight child - kid gets bullied for their "unusual" (shanghai noodles vs sandwiches) lunch and does not eat. Kid hates the nutritious lunches the parents pack and refuse to eat it. This kid dumps it out and tells their parents they ate. Or the kid has body image issues and secretly throws up their food.

We can safely assume the parents are acting to the best of their knowledge to be providing, and educational to their child, but the kid picks up bad habits and does them outside of their parent's view. Let's assume that the parents do notice their child is over or underweight and takes them to the doctor (trying to do what's best for their child) and the child refuses to fess up, I can't by any stretch consider those parents to be bad parents as long as they try to help their kid improve. But yes, if the parents are feeding their child mcdonalds everyday knowing it makes them obese, know that it is bad for the child, and continues to do so anyways, they're bad parents.

/r/changemyview Thread