Mommy Made Me Do It

Abstract

This article examines current trends in court cases, advice manuals and political campaigns that blame parents, and mothers more specifically, for their child's weight. The article suggests that the current political climate for overweight children and their mothers is harmful in ways often overlooked during discussions of childhood obesity and that in order to truly understand what is best for large children we must earnestly examine what might be unintentional yet problematic consequences of how the childhood obesity epidemic is being discussed.

Keywords:

• parenting
• mothers
• childhood obesity
• advice manuals
• child abuse
• litigation
• treatment