Child abuse and overweight children

Is it child abuse to let a child get grossly overweight or morbidly obese? Which is worse, physical abuse, mental abuse, emotional abuse or a your child until they are grossly overweight?

Having never been fat or grossly overweight I can't really speak for those people but I do know what the medical professionals say. So do you. Being overweight is a killer.

Ergo, if being overweight will kill you then it has to be child abuse to have a grossly overweight child. At the very least it has to be child neglect. So who's feeding these kids and what are they allowing them to eat.

Who's monitoring what they are doing? Why aren't their parents doing something about it. OTOH I see tons of fat men and women with even fatter kids. It's definitely not healthy for a child to be that fat no matter the size of the parents.

It's also a huge medical issue and if your kids aren't getting the health care they need or the things they need to be healthy then it's abuse.

Problem is most parents have abdicated their responsibility with "What can I do about it?" Parents have that attitude about a lot of things regarding their children yet the parents are supposed to be in charge or in control of the home and the child.

A couple of years ago there was a guy the Sioux Falls, SD TV station did a report on. He weighed 800 pounds and hadn't been able to get out of bed since he'd hit 500 pounds. Now if he can't get out of the damn bed how the hell did he gain the other 300 pounds?

Someone had to go buy him the food, someone had to prepare it for him and someone had to bring it to him. IOW someone had to aid and abet him in getting that fat after he couldn't get out of bed.

Heh, I'm just watching a woman on the CBS morning show and she's on with a cat that weighs 44 pounds. Fit's my category of animal abuse. That cat didn't get that fat catching it's own mice, now did it?

It got fat for the same reason kids get fat. Parents or animal owners don't know how to say no or feel guilty when they do or think it's cute to feed the kids or the pets all kinds of treats because it makes the parents or animal owners feel good.

I had a cat get fat once. We'd gone on a month vacation and hired someone to feed the cats, hamsters, etc. When we got back the male cat had gained about 15 pounds and was so fat he couldn't jump up on the table anymore.

I took one look at the cat, bought some Iams for fat cats and put his good on the floor and only fed him twice per day and way less than his usual amount. I put the other cats food on the table and she could jump up and get it. In a couple of months the fat cat had lost all the weight he'd gained and once again ran, played and could jump up on the table.

Feeding a cat, dog or kid until it's so fat it can't function is abuse and I don't care what anyone else says.

If not feeding a child is abuse then overfeeding a child should also be abuse. Some people overeat because of stress and need to stop stress eating. Some people overfeed their children because of stress and that needs to stop. Some overfeed them or let them get fat because it's to much hassle to do anything about it.

Well, if you are a parent of a fat child, it's your fault and it's time you take the responsibility and do something about it. No matter how much hassle it is for you. You aren't your child's best friend you're their parent so grow the hell up and act like a parent for a change.

Beatings and another of my physical child abuse stories

This is one of the physical child abuse stories that has a twist to it. It happened when I was 8 years old and as odd as it may seem in the middle of the beating I got control of my life away from my mother. It didn't stop the beating but I was still in control.

I don't really remember what I had done that pissed her off this time. I do have vague memories of it being about my not vacuuming very well. Considering I was vacuuming the floors on my hands and knees with something about the size of a dirt devil and my age I'm sure it wasn't the greatest job in the world. However the reason for it doesn't really matter.

For whatever reason it happened I remember it quite well as it was truly a vicious thing to do to me and at the same time it was a life changing event. I wouldn't say it changed my life for the better as it did make me a ton of stubborn and I still have that trait to the max today.

It started out with my mother coming home and soon she was yelling at me and working herself into a rage. I knew when she started yelling a beating was coming but I had no idea how bad it was going to be. Obviously I lived through this one too or I wouldn't be writing this but it was going to be my worst beating yet and one of the abuse stories I'll never, ever forget.

After working herself into a rage she took of her belt and told me to pull my pants down. I started crying and was begging her and pleading with her not to hit me with the belt. She got even angrier and pulled my pants and underwear down. When she started hitting me with the belt I was crying and curled up in a ball on the floor to try to protect myself as much as I could.

She grabbed me by the shirt and it tore off while she was trying to make me stand up. Eventually she forced me to stand up and then she started beating me with the belt again. While she was beating me I started getting angrier and angrier. I was still crying and squirming and trying to get her to stop but I was as angry at that point as I'd ever been.

It wasn't fair, it wasn't right and there was nothing I could do. At least that's what I thought. Then something happened in my head, I don't know how to explain what it was but it's like I was watching it happen from the corner of the room and it didn't hurt anymore.

At that point I stopped crying and just stood there with my arms at my sides and waited for her to finish. The fact that I stopped crying made her even more enraged and she started beating me harder and harder and hollering at me to 'cry you little bastard' and calling me names and telling me what a rotten little son-of-a-bitch I was and that she was going to beat me until I cryed.

Damn, I was in control and it happened accidentally. She kept beating me and screaming at me to cry and I wouldn't do it. From there it became a battle of wills and I knew I was going to win or die because I sure wasn't going to cry. No matter what she did I wasn't going to cry.

Still yelling and screaming at me she turned the belt around and started beating me with the buckle end and I just stood there silently and took it. She kept beating me with the buckle end and I just kept standing. She couldn't make me cry and she was determined to make it happen so the beating continued for some time.

Eventually she stopped. Why, I don't know but I didn't start crying again and she stopped. When she was done she told me to go to my room and stay there. Anything to get away from her so I went to my room and crawled into bed and got angrier and angrier and angrier. This was also the day I stopped believing in a god that loved children or in any god at all.

If there was a god and he truly loved children then for him to allow my mother to beat me that way really made me a bad kid or god was a lie. I already thought I was a really bad kid because of the way my mother treated me and didn't want me and god sure wasn't helping me. No one was helping me or protecting me. I also learned that day that the only one I could truly depend on was me.

This one beating turned me into one of the biggest lying, cheating thieving kids in town and it continued for years. Up until then I wasn't a bad kid, a bit unruly like most boys but not a bad kid. When no one likes you, when your mother hates you and when god is no help why not be exactly what you are being beaten for?

Anyway, a while after she had beaten me she came upstairs and asked me if I wanted to go to the movies or for an ice cream cone. I said no and turned over and faced the wall and refused to speak to her so she hit me a few times with her hands and then left me alone.

Despite the pain and wanting to die I eventually fell asleep. When I woke up the next morning I hurt really bad. My back and my butt and the back of my legs hurt so bad I could hardly get out of bed. I managed to get out of bed and that's when I saw that my sheets were all full of blood. I started to get dressed to go to school but I wasn't moving very fast and she was yelling at me to hurry up.

I managed to get my underwear and socks on but I could hardly move to do it. She finally got tired of yelling at me to hurry up and came stomping up the stairs. She took one look at me and told me to go back to bed as I wasn't going to school that day. Turns out I didn't have to go to school for the rest of the week. As it was a Wednesday morning the next day I went to school was 5 days later on Monday. By then I was pretty much back to normal and could move without pain.

She had beaten me so bad she was afraid to send me to school. This was in 1955 and you could pretty much do whatever you wanted to do to a kid and nothing was going to happen to whoever did it. Yet this time she must have stepped way over that line because she was afraid to send me to school.

A side affect of this beating was when I got in fights after that and for the next 30 years I never felt any pain at all during the fight. That made me a very dangerous person for a long time and a lot of people thought I was crazy. Nothing worse than a guy who doesn't care what happens and doesn't feel anything either. Perhaps I was crazy, maybe I still am. I act normal enough nowdays that I evidently pass for sane. ;) I don't know that I am though and I am afraid of letting myself feel rage. However that's a different one of my stories of abuse and I'll tell you it another day.

The physical abuse from my mother continued for another 6 years but never again as bad as this one was. I suspect if it had been much worse I'd have gotten my wish and been dead. However from that point nothing in my life mattered to me except books, my sister and being alone.

I know I haven't conveyed how bad it really was as I tend to minimize things a lot so try to read between the lines a bit. How much do I minimize? Heh, I once tried to pull a 4 inch cut together with two band-aids. 6 hours later I went to the doctor because the damn bleeding wouldn't let the band-aids stick and got 13 stitches. I'm usually very understated also.

I told you she beat me with the buckle end of her belt. What I didn't tell you is it was one of the wide western belts with a huge buckle. Use your own imagination and think about the damage a 30 minute beating with that belt could do to an 8 year old child, then you'll have an idea. Not a good one but you'll be a lot closer than my description.

Is it any wonder I hated that bitch for the rest of my life. Is it any wonder that I turned into a person who didn't give a damn. Is it any wonder I hate people who do violence to children and would use my own kind of violence to stop it when I could. Is it any wonder that for years I thought violence was a way to solve problems?

Want to raise kids to be wonderfully kind, functional adults with great self esteem. I can assure you that beating them to a bloody pulp isn't going to do it. It sure didn't work for me. It took another 30 years for me to figure out I wasn't a bad person.

I feel I got cheated out of about 38 years of life and truly being alive. I'm not the same person now and no longer believe violence is a way to solve problems. It's much more fun to use your mind to solve them but there are some people who only understand and respect violence and with those people I don't have any qualms about using violence if necessary.

As the Whitney Houston song 'Greatest Love of All' says, 'No matter what they take from me they can't take away my dignity'. Lol, what kind of music does a severely depressed and abused person like. Here's the link to my favorites play list at YouTube. It's not all of them but it's a good start. My favorite music

That's it for today and now I'll have to meditate for at least 30 minutes to get this negative crap out of my head.

BTW, I never cryed again when she beat me. I told you, I finally got control. Not a big deal to you but it sure was for me.

More on my lifelong depression and possible causes

I don't want to explicitly tell you about every instance of all the physical, mental or sexual abuse. It will get really boring in a hurry because it happened every day of my life.

School was just as dumb as always and I was just as bored as always, beatings and mental abuse continued as usual and as per normal my sister got everything and never got abused. The sexual abuse did slow down after we moved to the west side but it still continued at least on a weekly basis.

Some days were better than others and I learned to stay as far away from my parents as possible. The less I saw of them the better the day would be as I wouldn't be hit or beaten or mentally abused near as much. Basically everyday I ran away from the house and didn't come back until I absolutely had to. Then I'd take my beating, go to bed and do it all over again the next day.

I had few friends, no one I trusted completely and no place to go to get away from it. Had I lived in a bigger town I'd have run away and become a street kid but that's hard to do when everyone in town knows you.

Tomorrow I'll tell you the first time I ever got control, how it happened and what it did to me. BTW I was 8 when it happened. No, it didn't stop any of the child abuse and it enraged my mother and actually made the physical abuse worse for awhile.

My life and why child abuse is so wrong

Child abuse is so wrong because it causes people like me. It hurts people it causes chronic depression and major depression, it causes low self esteem and much more.

One of my jobs at the house I was born in was to haul water from my grandma's house back to my house in a 5 gallon bucket. Damn bucket was almost as big as I was. I was really glad when we moved out of that house.

We moved and finally had running water and a bathroom, inside no less. No more freezing your balls off in the winter. My sister and I finally didn't have to sleep in the same room with our parents. Didn't make it much better because she and I still slept in one room upstairs. Lol, the only room upstairs. Basically and attic with floorboards. Hotter than hell in the summer, colder than hell in the winter.

You might think life got better but it didn't. Now besides taking care of my sister I had to do all the chores around the house. Vacuuming, dishes, garbage and everything else that needed done. I was 6 or so and some of it was just beyond my capabilities. Didn't matter tho because if I didn't do it perfect I got beaten.

So not much had really changed except location. I was still responsible for my sister, I was still being beaten and I was still being sexually abused by my uncle.

One time my parents had been gone for three days, naturally we were left alone, and my sister who was just over three was crying because she was hungry. I'd cooked everything available and there was no food left in the house, not even milk. Hell of a thing when a six yr old is cooking for a three yr old.

We were always given strict instructions when my parents would leave us, that we were to stay in the house, not go anywhere and not tell anyone they were gone. The punishment for committing any of those crimes was to be severly beaten.

My sister was crying so much I didn't see any choice but taking her to my grandma's house so she could eat. Me, I'd be fine but she had to eat. I also knew what the punishment was going to be and I knew it was going to be very, very bad but what was I going to do? Just let her cry until they came home. What if it was a few more days?

It was about 8 blocks to my grandma's house and she couldn't walk that far so I decided screw the punishment and I put her in the old wagon I had. I knew I was going to be hurt but I did it anyway. I pulled her in the wagon all the way to granma's house and told her what was wrong.

She was so mad at my parents if they'd been there she might have killed both of them. Anyway, she fed us and as it was late put us to bed on her big couch. At least my sister wasn't crying and we both had full bellies so life was good at the moment.

Thoe horror was yet to come. A couple of hours later my grandma woke us up and our parents were there. She raised hell with them about leaving us alone and hungry and then we left. I knew as soon as we turned the corner at the end of the alley it was going to start.

I was right! Soon as we turned my mother turned around and slapped me as hard as she could and started calling me names. Then she just kept hitting me until we got home. Once we got into the house my dad started beating me with his belt and I was crying very hard. So once again they beat me until they both got tired of it and I was sent to bed. Once again I tried to kill myself.

I'm so angry writing this I'm shaking. What was I supposed to do? I protected my sister and got the hell beat out of me for it. I suppose to this day it's why I'll always do the right thing no matter what the consequences are to me. That doing the right thing crap has cost me more than a few trips to jail or physical and mental pain or money.

That part doesn't matter though as I still do the right thing, not always the legal thing BUT the right thing. It still costs me and it's costing me today. No big deal though as I can handle it. Heh, there isn't anything I can't handle. I still protect women and kids from others and I guess I always will.

Most good people don't think I'm a very nice person but they don't have a clue. The people that I've helped during my life think I'm the greatest person they ever met. What do I think? Lol, not much as I did what I had to do at the time and that's just how I am. I can live with who and what I am.

Bottom line why child abuse is so wrong is because you end up with people like me who just don't give a damn if they live or die or what happens to them. Prisons are full of people just like me who were abused and just don't care. Society pays for it in the end and thats how that is.

Physical child abuse stories

I suppose I could tell my child abuse victims stories for a long time and I'm sure I'll tell you more of them in the future. They happened and that's a fact I can't escape. However child abuse stories get old and a lot of people have their own stories to tell. The problem is they do relate to my depression so there's no real way to get away from them.

While there are no pictures of physical child abuse of me I have seen other peoples pictures and other peoples scars. There were no hidden cameras back then and not to many people were taking pictures or movies of what they were doing to their kids. So no pics for proof, just my word.

One of the things that bothered me all of my life is the fact that people knew I was being abused and no one did anything to stop it. Even the minister at the church knew but back then there was no church child abuse policy nor even a school policy about abuse. Even my teachers knew and looked the other way.

In my mind there are only three different types of child abuse. Physical, mental and sexual. Under those three are all the subcategories of how it was done. Only one of those three types shows and that's the physical. To me the mental abuse is worse than the physical because those effects last a lifetime but I suppose everyone has their own ideas there too. Doesn't matter which is worse though because they are all bad.

Many people wonder why child abuse is so wrong and don't even believe what they are doing is hurting their kids, permanently. If you read some child abuse facts you'll discover that somewhere around 90% of abused children grow up to abuse their own children. There you have the exact reason I never had kids. I was very afraid I would do to them what was done to me and I would rather be dead than do that to any little kids.

Our prisons are full of people who know the effects of physical child abuse and I've been there myself. You can really hear some horror stories in jail or prison about beatings, torture, starvation, being locked in closets, etc. You don't raise beaten children to become truly functional adults but hey, I fake it pretty well most of the time.

Relationships are a huge problem for me because I have a huge fear of abandonment and rejection and need constant reassurance through both words and actions that the person I'm in a relationship with truly does care for me. It always felt to me like no one cared and that in turn caused me to feel that no one could ever possibly like me, care about me or love me. When they say they do I keep doing things I shouldn't to make them prove they do care. Yes, I'd say relationships are a major problem. Just another one of the of child abuse effects I live with. That's enough to depress me by itself.

Heh, I've been diagnosed with everything you can think of including ptsd, adhd, add, odd and many more. Lol, if they were to stick post it note labels on my body there wouldn't be enough room for everything shrinks have said are wrong with me. I'd save on clothes tho. ;) I lost track of how many times I've been arrested and how many times I've been in jail. Did a lot of 30 day sentences for fighting though or disorderly conduct.

About half of those fights were with abusers. I absolutely hate to see women or children abused and I've helped quite a few women who were in that situation. I have no qualms about hurting guys who hurt women. Funny because that's another thing I lived with. My father beat my mother frequently so once again there's the 90% chance I'd do the same. While I've been quite violent on occassion it's never, ever been directed at women or kids.

Matter of fact I've never been arrested for being a thief or anything else. Just some sort of violence. Take no crap and take no prisoners was my attitude. I've been shot, stabbed, cut and beaten to within an inch of my life because I wouldn't quit. I spent a lot of time in jails for doing what I believed was the right thing and I suppose I will again. Just can't seem to keep my nose out of it when I see a guy, I was going to say man but men don't do those things, hurting a woman. The police have never been to my house for a domestic disturbance and they never will be.

While I never physically abused women and was quite proud of that fact I was dismayed to discover that I did mentally abuse them. I never saw the mental thing as being abuse until after a couple of years with my ex wife. I put her and her sons through therapy with a really good therapist. Now and then the therapist and I would talk and she taught me a few things. Between her and my ex I did learn that mentally it's still abuse. I apologize here and now to every woman I ever mentally abused.

What's the cause of child abuse? Well according to all of the shrinks I've talked to it's because the abusers were abused. Most of the time anyway. Some people say there is a correlation between child abuse and homelessness but I'm not sure of that because I don't know many homeless people. I've been homeless before but it didn't have anything to do with my being raised by abusive parents. Unless I'm deep in denial about that it was more of a case of wrong place and bad times. It didn't last long as I'm to damn independent to be homeless and ask others for help.

That's enough of this for today. I'm sure anyone who reads these is tired of it by the end of what I have to say. All I can tell you is don't abuse your kids and don't abuse your woman if you want them to be good people. Besides, if I see you doing it I'm liable to hurt you as much as I can.

Funny, I've never seen myself as a victim.