Should authorities investigate the parents of morbidly obese children for child abuse?

I voted NO and can't see how to change the wrong answer being displayed!

There are many reasons why a child [or an adult for that matter] have weight issues. Some of it might be down to poor parenting either by ignorance or choice or parental income, the food on offer at supermarkets tends to be of the sugary and fatty kind.

Genetics also plays its part too [at long last] scientific evidence is backing up what can obviously be seen in families! Some mat argue that the bad eating habits of a family are learn't behaviour and explains why parents then child have issued. However I am a keen family historian and have lots of photos of my ancestors many generations removed from me and guess what even back into the mid 1800's they all come in many shapes and sizes, not much junk food around then and much more manual labour and exercise.

I have weight issues have done from around the age of 8 when I was put on my first diet. Diets don't work in the end the dieter often ends up fatter now I have stopped dieting my weight has been stable for the last 8 years not ideal but at least constant which is much healthier [now also proven] than constantly loosing and then gaining more weight.

We have two children one who doesn't have any weight issues and one that does. It saddens me my son has inherited my weight problems and now the anti what ever they don't have a problem with are busy criticising people with weight issues I know we will always have a tough time. BUT people should stop making sweeping generalisation comments.

I cook every day from scratch healthy food we eat lots of salads and fruit is always available. I only buy biscuits [cookies] cakes, sweets [candies] diet soda's, crisps [chips] etc for my daughter [not many] and these I have to keep locked in the car BECAUSE my son does everything he can to thwart our efforts to keep him away from eating the wrong food! He will wait till we are asleep at night and take the kitchen door key, or get the car keys. We had to make him packed lunches as the school canteen staff would let him have 2nd, 3rd's and 4ths it's a constant battle with all the sweets and cakes other children bring into school as well school fairs where they are prevalent. Doing well and good behaviour in school are all rewarded with sweets. He has even eaten mouldy food put out to go in the bin [tho claims he didn't know it was], stock cubes because he thought they were sweets!

To control his appetite we have learnt to restrict him from eating sugary or starchy food because once he has eaten these then he can not stop eating. I could and do cry because he constantly undermines any help we try to give him. So there you have it we are terrible parents because we lock food away from him and stop him eating the things that are bad. He's about 28-35lb overweight at best we have got him to loose 14lbs at best now he yo-yo's 7lb on/off.

I don't like the selections.
I'd say yes, but not necessarily because it's child abuse.
i'd say it should be investigated because there might be a family in need. I live in an area hard hit by rampant outsourcing of jobs, the economy is in a shambles and continuing to collapse. People struggling to merely survive, losing homes, 65% of the children fall under the school free lunch program because their families fall under poverty levels. Jobs sent to China do not return to America, those incomes are lost forever, as well as that incomes contributons to the local economy. As incomes drop, healthy eating is one of the first things sacraficed. Meat becomes more scarce, the diet changes to the cheapest food source available, and we all know what that is, the starches. This isn't always because parents are pumping their kids full of Big Macs, around here even the McDonalds are closing, it because the diet has become too healthy. You know it, I know it, same would happen to me, start eating too much starch, the waistling expands, even though you don't eat any more. Think it's coincidence the greatest number of overweight cases are among the poor? Sometimes, yes, it's bad examples and bad parenting, but we have to admit to ourselves as a country, some of it is simply because there are more and more people who just can't afford to eat right any more.
My wife and I volunteer at a Project Host one weekend a month, everyone here should try it. You can't believe how sad it is to see parents, many who have lost their homes, coming in because it's the only way they can provide their children with a decent meal. Some I know, they were once good, proud, hard working blue collar workers in a big textile mill that was shut down and the jobs sent to Bahrain. They look down when they see me, the pride gone, and sometimes it's hard not to cry.