Well, I don't know if it's that "
Cut and dried". On the one hand, some peeps can argue that the parents just love their baby to such a high degree that they can't resist not giving their baby any food whenever he/she wants some (Their behavior might not be intentional). On the other hand, I can see where it would be considered child abuse as there is a question of concern for the baby's health (I would not be surprised if nothing was done and that child suffered a heart attack at the age of five from being even more obese). I guess that the parents should be examined as well (Are they obese as well? Or just overly worried that their child is not getting enough to eat (It's sort of like the opposite of
Anorexia Nervosa that the parents are projecting upon their baby and at that age, the child doesn't know any better. It's sort of like feeding tropical fish in a tank. The more food you place before the fish, the more the fish will eat). Perhaps the parents need court mandated lessons in proper nutrition for a child and some counseling. I don't know what happened to the toddler in the picture since the article doesn't name the parents or the baby. I can only hope that the baby received a proper diet an is now doing well!
Sadly, I've also seen the opposite happen as well where the parents starved their baby to near death [And sometimes to death] unintentionally but it's almost too sad to talk about but if you're curious, it involved a married couple who were both followers of Christian Science ->
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ...rkhurst_Quimby. They fed their less than twelve month old baby boy adult food when the baby hadn't yet developed the right full set of teeth to chew adult food (e.g. Solid slices of a whole apple) and the digestive system to digest the nutrients of whatever he swallowed. What happened was that the parents thought that they were taking good care of their baby by feeding him adult food but in actuality, the baby was slowly starving (That's why there's mushy baby food for sale, Duh!). I remember that when the aunt was finally interviewed on the TV news program "20/20", she said that most babies her nephew's age have chubby round bottoms but whenever she changed her nephew, she would always see a bony behind underneath his diaper. She tried to sneak some baby food into his mouth whenever she had the chance but she wasn't always around to care for him and calling the police on her sister was out of the question in her mind since she worried that if she did, the parents might find out, try to take the baby, run away and sever all contact with her and other relatives which would only make things worse for the baby. The parents didn't understand why their baby was getting unusually thin and thought that he would get healthier if they continued to pray to God for his recovery. Luckily, someone (A neighbor?) finally intervened and called Child Welfare Services. The baby finally received the proper nutrition that he needed and recovered his full health. After a court hearing, the parents were not found guilty of anything given the situation (Christian Science is a recognized religion and the parents were just acting in accordance with the tenets of their religion, so the charges of child abuse were throw out of court.) but were given classes on proper child nutrition and some counseling. The baby was returned to them more than six months later when he was a stronger toddler by then and more able to eat and digest adult food (At the toddler stage, babies can eat many solid foods that adults can eat). I hope that kid is doing okay now. The story happened many years ago back in the eighties and I can't find it on Google but there are similar stories that can be found (Don't read some of them if you're not strong enough to withstand the horrific details based on the titles of some of the articles in the search results)->
https://www.google.com/search?q=chri...w=1280&bih=862
Bottom line, if someone has such a precious life to care for then they should educate themselves on how to properly care for such a fragile little being who cannot care for him/herself, otherwise they shouldn't have any babies!