Courts Charge Mother of 555-Pound Boy

jillio said:
Here's a thought. Volunteer some time through your local Jobs and Family Services Dept. teaching low income individuals how to grow a successful garden. You have a skill. Use it to benefit those less fortunate than yourself.
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That is a good idea.
 
souggy said:
Er... not really. When you calculate the hourly wages... it's not. When you start calculating how much of your time gardening could be used toward working at a job... you realize that home-grown vegetables and pork are actually expensive compared to those companies that factory-farm produces.

Problem is..

I don't know where the hell you guys are living that fresh produces is more expensive than junk food?
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Dis is da troof.

But... This report could exclude some disorders that would contribute to obesity. There was a kid who went to Colo deaf & blind - He was always wheelchair bound, the cafeteria had a diet plan for him set up and all. The PT department was always working with him. he lived at the dorms and he still ballooned to 400+ and was well onto his way to 500 when he died.

He wasn't on no twinkies or such. Bunch of assumptions in this report and thread.

(Thyroid gland dysfunction if you guys wanted to look it up)
 
souggy said:
Er... not really. When you calculate the hourly wages... it's not. When you start calculating how much of your time gardening could be used toward working at a job... you realize that home-grown vegetables and pork are actually expensive compared to those companies that factory-farm produces.

Problem is..

I don't know where the hell you guys are living that fresh produces is more expensive than junk food?
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The initial planting and harvest requires a lot of time. In between, you just have to weed and water.

edit: I have actually thought a lot about this. When I drive around town, I see a lot of unused land. I am thinking about going to my town's chamber of commerce and making a suggestion for some of this land to be used as a community vegetable garden. That way, the work load can be divided and those without property to grow vegetables can use it.
 
Wirelessly posted

I know. Mom used to feed us from her garden til she figured that it wasn't cost-efficient to keep it going.
 
pоsts frоm hell said:
Dis is da troof.

But... This report could exclude some disorders that would contribute to obesity. There was a kid who went to Colo deaf & blind - He was always wheelchair bound, the cafeteria had a diet plan for him set up and all. The PT department was always working with him. he lived at the dorms and he still ballooned to 400+ and was well onto his way to 500 when he died.

He wasn't on no twinkies or such. Bunch of assumptions in this report and thread.

(Thyroid gland dysfunction if you guys wanted to look it up)
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Agree that there are any number of medical conditions that contribute to obesity, but the mother failed to take her son to the medical appointments that were set up to rule out any medical conditions.
 
Steinhauer said:
The initial planting and harvest requires a lot of time. In between, you just have to weed and water.
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that's assuming they have time and garden but most don't. Most work day and night. double shift. live in "shared house"
 
jillio said:
Agree that there are any number of medical conditions that contribute to obesity, but the mother failed to take her son to the medical appointments that were set up to rule out any medical conditions.
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There are a lot of missing information - Did she have insurance on the kid for instance.

When you're dirt poor you start to neglect things in order to survive in the super short term. Usually and sadly, health is one of the first few things that goes out of the window.

Part of this makes me angry politically...
 
Jiro said:
that's assuming they have time and garden but most don't. Most work day and night. double shift. live in "shared house"
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The "working poor". They are the largest portion of the lower SES group in this country.
 
pоsts frоm hell said:
There are a lot of missing information - Did she have insurance on the kid for instance.

When you're dirt poor you start to neglect things in order to survive in the super short term. Usually and sadly, health is one of the first few things that goes out of the window.

Part of this makes me angry politically...
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Yep, I understand that. I really don't know if she had insurance or not because it isn't stated in the article. But, if the appointments were mandated through Children's Services, they would have referred her to a practitioner that saw indigent clients if she was without insurance.
 
Steinhauer said:
that is where a community garden would help.
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And that leads to another idea. Find a sponsor in your town that would foot the bill for seedlings, fertilizer, etc. Home Depot, Menards, Lowe's...places like that will do so just for the free advertising. Then get a group of people from your church, from your job, from your neighborhood, etc. to maintain the garden and donate the produce to a local food bank that distributes food to the poor, such as St. Vincent Society or the food banks associated with a local church.
 
jillio said:
Yep, I understand that. I really don't know if she had insurance or not because it isn't stated in the article. But, if the appointments were mandated through Children's Services, they would have referred her to a practitioner that saw indigent clients if she was without insurance.
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This is where I can't comment because I don't know much in this area. Would they have billed her?
 
pоsts frоm hell said:
This is where I can't comment because I don't know much in this area. Would they have billed her?
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Well, I am not from that area. But I do see mandated clients from Children's Services and if they don't have insurance, they are not billed. If I find that they are in need of medical care, I refer to a group of physicians that see them without billing, as well. I would hope there is arrangements for the same procedure in all areas, but to be honest, I don't know for sure.
 
Jiro said:
still not enough for their calories needs especially for 10-12 hrs labor job. they need meat and fat. lot of them.
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A garden is supposed to supplement a diet, not replace what you are already eating.

Gardening provides better nutrition than store bought vegetables (if done right) as well as exercise.

I would recommend planting a lot of spaghetti squash.

I also noticed something this year. I bought a single packet of Roma Tomato seeds. That one packet got me over 50 individual Roma tomato plants. Each individual plant will grow over 50 tomatoes this season (yep, started them from seed and I already have tomatoes - the plant is about as tall as me and its been 3 months).

I discovered I had enough tomatoes to feed half of Cleveland ;) so I started giving tomato plants away. My mom has 8 of them in her yard now. I have friends that took some and followed my instructions as to where to plant them and how much water etc. and they have large tomato plants that are yielding delicious Roma tomatoes.


The seed packet cost me a buck fifty.
 
jillio said:
And that leads to another idea. Find a sponsor in your town that would foot the bill for seedlings, fertilizer, etc. Home Depot, Menards, Lowe's...places like that will do so just for the free advertising. Then get a group of people from your church, from your job, from your neighborhood, etc. to maintain the garden and donate the produce to a local food bank that distributes food to the poor, such as St. Vincent Society or the food banks associated with a local church.
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Yes that is why I want to talk to the chamber of commerce. Those guys are very political and would want all the credit for such a great idea, I don't care about getting credit - they can take all the credit for it as long as something good happens.

There are a lot of farms in this area, the farmers may be members of the chamber of commerce, if each farmer could donate land for a community garden that would be real nifty.

Can even set up a weekend program for those who work or don't have transportation (car pool).
 
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