This House Would Take Obese Children From Their Parents [Positive]

0
4541
This House Would Take Obese Children From Their Parents

In the status quo, 15 percent of children between the ages of 6 and 19 are obese. Each year, over 300 000 deaths are caused by obesity-related condition in the United States alone. There has been so much harm developed by obesity on children that put their health at risk, for example disease such as stroke, diabetes, cholesterol, and so on, which in the end of the day causes premature death. We believe that this problem impose an urgency for the government to reduce the number of obese children.

First, we would like to identify the problem at hand:

First, neglecting parents. We believe that the main actor that causes the problem is the parents of the said children themself. We characterize these parents as parents who prioritize their work over family, and therefore they are not fully concerned about the interest of their family – and in this debate, the interest of their children. This results in children being neglected by their parents and having no model to guide them and because of this they are forced to make decisions for themselves, including on what they eat.

Second, children’s undeveloped rational capacity. We believe that unlike adults, children do not have the rational capacity to choose what is best for them. For example, when given the option of something pleasurable or something beneficial, children will choose pleasure in a heartbeat. The same can be applied to the food they consume – when given the choice of KFC which is pleasurable but unbeneficial to health versus vegetable which is not pleasurable but beneficial to the health, the children will choose KFC to fulfil their short term satisfaction.

Combine the fact that children have not developed their rational capacity fully to take care of their health, and there is no active role of parents to guide the children in regards of what a healthy lifestyle is, we believe that these are the two factors that lead to child obesity.

The goal that we want to achieve with our proposal is reducing the amount of obese children.

We will apply our model in countries with high roles of children overall prevelance of obesity as measured from their BMI, for eg. United Statesof America

As a disclaimer, we would not be debating about whether or not it is okay for children to be obese. The debate should focus on reducing the amount of obese children, and whether or not it is justifiable for the government to take away obese children from their parents to solve the problem.

Now going on to the mechanism that we propose to solve the problem:

  1. We will cooperate with school to earn the data required in regards to obese children. Every school will conduct a BMI measurement test to every student, and will report the result to the government.
  2. From the result, we will identify the students who are deemed obese.
  3. The obese children will be taken away to a specialized institution which is facilitated with nutritionist, social service worker, psychologist, and doctors to do various activities to lose weight: receiving education on a healthy lifestyle, conducting regular exercise, and eating healthy diet.

As the prime minister, I will prove two things:

Number one, how status quo can never solve the problem and the model that we propose will be the only to solution to reduce obesity

Number two, why our model is justifiable to be implemented and how it is effective to reach the goal at the end of the day.

  1. Now going on to the first argument, how only our model can solve the problem

First layer, in the status quo we can see that various measures have been done to prevent the rise of obese children, among them are:

  • The government has done measures to raise awareness of a healthy lifestyle among the society, both to the parents (by doing social service campaign, advertisement, etc) and also to the children (through health education at school).
  • Teachers have reported to the parents that a child is showing signs of having obesity

However we can clearly see that the status quo is not enough as parents still choose to neglect the health of their own children. Proven by how the number of obese children are still rising every year.

Second layer, in this narrative we believe that parents have failed to fulfil their responsibility to nurture their child and have derived their child the right to a healthy life. And because parents can’t fulfil their supposed responsibility, it is only right for the government to take over to protect the interest of the children to a healthy life. Through our model, we believe that we can solve the problem because our model can help children lose weight healthily, and also ensure that they will still maintain their ideal weight even after the mechanism is done, how so:

  • Our model put together health experts, such as nutritionist and doctor, that will monitor the diet the child consume and the exercise they do to burn their fat to ensure that the child’s weight loss journey is a healthy and effective one.
  • Our model provides education that will change the perspective of the children to a healthy lifestyle. This change of perspective will ensure that the goal of the government, which is to reduce the number of obesity, will be incorporated in the life of the children as a habit; therefore there will be no possibility that they will be obese again.
  1. Now going to the second argument, how our model is justifiable to be implemented

  • First layer, we do acknowledge that our model might cause some minor harm in which both parents and children aren’t able to see each other during the period that the children is quarantine. However, this minor harm will still not derive the children’s right of affection as parents will still have access to their children:
  1. Direct contact through weekly visit
  2. Indirect contact through phone call
  • And even if there is stress caused by the model that we propose, we believe that it will also be beneficial. Why do we say so? Because the stress will be a detterant effect for the parent. When the children are taken away from their parents, it will instill a sense of fear in both the parents and children from being away from each other. Because of the fear that their child will be taken away, parents will no longer neglect their children’s right of a healthy life and they will finally nurture their children properly. This fear will also motivate and push the children to lose their weight so that they can go back to their parents faster.
  • Second layer, we believe that our proposal is justifiable because there is a tradeoff where the benefits of our mechanism are:
  1. For the children, they will no longer be obese after the mechanism is applied, therefore their health won’t be at risk to premature death as well. They willalso be able to discipline themselves to a healthy lifestyle even after the program ends as they have changed their perspective from choosing a food that is pleasurable to a food that is benfecial to their health
  2. For the parents, they are no longer at risk of paying expensive hospital bills that is the result of the obesity related disease of their own children. Our mechanism will also create a detterant effect to the parents that we have explained before to not neglect the health of their children anymore, thus solving the problem at hand.
  3. For the government, we will not have to spend money on health care in order to restore public health. We will also have a healthier and productive society that can help develop a country.

Which is why, we are proud to propose this motion