Too Fat to Adopt?

Anyone who wants to provide a child with a loving, stable home should be allowed to adopt.
I don't care about your BMI,race, religion, political views, gender, sexual orientation, or if you're purple with green polka dots.
There are so many kids that need good homes out there.
Where would a ban like this lead - forced sterilization of heavier people?Could you imagine the out-cry from the pro-life movement then?

My gosh - this is shocking. I realize it's important to have screening in place for adoptive parents, but I think there are a lot better criteria to be looking at before you look at BMI.

I think it is important for parents to be healthy, but something like weight could be address with nutrition classes and treatment rather than pushing loving people off adoption lists.

I don't think weight is the government's business so any law that governs it is bad news. But I can also see why obesity is a worry, because parents cannot adopt if there are big health issues and obesity is definitely a health issue. At the end of the day I would have to vote for no law on BMI. It just makes us that much closer to the government butting in on non-adoptive families for being obese, unhealthy or just eating bad. I do not get the pro-life movement 'out-cry' comment though. Sterilization doesn't kill babies, it prevents them. That's separate from pro-lifer feelings about not killing a living being. Let's not complicate things. Kids need homes, if someone can afford the overly expensive adoption process and passes everything else, let them love a child as the child so needs.

as a less-than-ideal bmi person, this disturbs me on a lot of levels... sure there are health risks with being overweight. But there are health risks with being obssessed with body image to the point of starvation too, and this doesn't seem to address that at all. What about the potential adoptors that are unhealthy on the other end of the scale? What about smokers? Or perhaps someone who drinks a glass or two of wine with their meals? Or any other bad habit? Where do you draw the line once you start making judgement calls like that?

While I understand the need to view obesity as a health problem, I think excluding "foreigners with a BMI of 40 or above" is too vague. Dealing with specific health issues that arise as a result of obesity is one thing. Lumping a whole group of people together as unfit for adopting based on BMI is discrimination in my opinion.

I think that's pushing things too far - there are people who would be *perfect* parents yet, for whatever reason, have *less*-than-perfect BMIs. To exclude them is to deny a child the parents they deserve, and to teach a whole new level of discrimination which is wholly unfair.

I agree with Zanna! There has to be line drawn somewhere and where is it going to stop?

This is rediculous. Do they look at how many calories you take in per day? Too few lead to bad health, also. What if you are as thin as a rail and eat nothing but junk all day --is that OK?

I only hope that this doesn't start here in the US. We don't need more government in our personal lives.

I can see their point. Obesity of that level comes with health problems or limitation of activities. If a child is that important to you, losing weight and adopting a healthy lifestyle would be a minor hurdle if it guaranteed you the child you're seeking.

I don't think laws should be made like this one, however I think parents should look at themselves very closely and ask if they can provide the best possible home for a child.

Being obese can really cut down on what an adoptive parent can give a child...time, energy, good examples in nutrition and exercise, etc. The same goes for biological parents as well.

Oh my! Too fat, and a couple months ago there was the uproar about too old to have a baby.. I believe that if a child will be raised with love and caring that the perspective parents will provide, the 'normal' adoption screening process should not involve the BMI or the age of the mother. Perhaps the energies of this particular division of the government would be better spent in screening foster parents? Just a thought.

I am very much against this restriction. It's amazing to me that adoptive parents have to jump through so many hurdles when they are trying to provide a home for a baby that someone else doesn't want. Biological parents don't have to answer any questionnaries involving their BMIs, religion, income, marital status, sexual orientation, etc to have children...why do we make it so difficult for the infertile to become parents?? In my opinion, this new regulation isn't just BMI discrimination, it's also fertility discrimination.

::rolls eyes:: I have asthma -- does that mean they should block me as well?

How sad, when so many children still go without loving parents, that this would even be a consideration.

Maybe so, if you have severe asthma that may leave your adopted child an orphan again someday too soon. I'm not sure it's really too much to ask for a loving parent who will be around to set a healthy example for children who have already had a hard time. It may feel unfair or inconvenient to you, but these kids probably deserve a rigorous screening of their parents to be.

Its an odd way of going about it, but I think there is something to be said for selecting those who choose more healthy lifestyles. Would it be wrong for the agency to determine they will not adopt to parents who smoke?

There unfortunately must be a line somewhere. Obese people can live just as long and full lives as others, despite the figures. Gotta say, I'm over that BMI of 40 and have low blood pressure and cholesterol. Both things that are attributed to all obese people. Every obese person is NOT the same. Limiting adoption on the assumption that all obese people have a set standard of health conditions and will die early is just that, an assumption.

Are you kidding me? A person is overweight and suddenly they have less love, compassion and caring in their heart? Ridiculous!

I'm laughing as I read these (sorry) ridiculous comments. A BMI of 40 is not overweight, it is severely, severely obese - for someone 5'6 it is 250 pounds and more. This is not saying that 'non-models' cannot adopt children, it's saying that they will not consider those with limited mobility or (potential) health problems. I speak as someone who is overweight, and trying to do something about it. To 'T' who has a BMI of 40 - please get some help - the health risks of obesity are not some 'thin people conspiracy to make you feel bad' carrying A LOT of extra weight is bad for you, and every study ever done shows that statistically there is a negative impact on all indicators of well-being. But I guess I'm just part of the conspiracy, right...I then I killed JFK! Lol!! Self delusion is still the most powerful force on earth!

This is most definitely discrimination. I don't think the government should have any say what-so-ever in anything relating to someone's weight. Obesity just happens to be that next handicap, sex, religion or whatever discriminiation. You don't have to be married to adopt, you don't have to have both a male and a female included in the process, you don't have to be Catholic, or Jewish, or whatever... So why should you have to be skinny?

This is just another way for the government to say its ok to judge someone by their weight.

This is ridiculous. Telling a family that is quite capible of loving and caring for a child, whom someone other woman said she didn't want, that they can't because one or the other (or Gasp! both) are to fat. This is really offensive.

Next thing we know... they aren't going to be allowing people with a certain hair color to adopt.

How far are we going to let the goverenments take this?

Wow. I'm a little speechless. On one hand, while I can completely understand the idea *behind* the restriction, I think it's completely and utterly ridiculous. People are overweight for a myriad of reasons - NOT just because they do nothing but eat. At my very heaviest I was 351lbs - I'm 5'7". That's a BMI of 55. I have two sons - does that mean I shouldn't have them? I'd be more concerned with people who can't physically take care of children, or who can't provide financially. Whether you're 140lbs or not shouldn't come into play if you're a willing, able, loving parent.

Just my two cents.

While I think there is good intent behind this idea, it's a very slippery slope. Who do we exclude next, and on what basis? Discrimination against overweight people seems to be one of the last forms of discrimination that is still accepted.

I feel bad for those rare kids who have to lose two sets of parents but geeze! Why not do a compleate physical/health screening of the parents instead? A bad BMI isn't the only indication of being unhealthy. What happens if an adoptive parent has an unknown brain tummor and dies unexpectedly the next year? Not every large person is going to drop dead just because. It's not the BMI that kills, it's the effects of the BMI and not every person is effected the same by it.

I am an adoptive mom.... our dd is now 16 but when we were going through the process, right here in the U.S. We were told that since the birth mom/parents decide that the older you are and the heavier the less your chances of them picking you! Fair? No! Reality? Yes! The government had nothing to do with the decision. It was totally the birth parents. Thankfully age and weight did not hinder our selection by our dd's birth mom! (I was loosing weight at that time and the social worker would change it on our profile every so often... but... I still would have been classified as over weight!)

BMI is a ridiculous indicator of health, plain and simple. If the Chinese government is going to use BMI in adoption cases, they might as well check everything else about the prospective parents health. Yes, we ALL know being severly overweight CAN BE unhealthy, but so is having diabetes, asthma, smoking, and a whole host of other behaviors and chronic diseases. Are they checking for those? If not, they need to leave the weight issue alone, because it's discrimination and nothing else.

We've become so politically correct that fat people are the last acceptable prejudice. What makes a skinny person a better parent? It's what is inside that counts -- at least, that's what we tell our children when they don't like someone based upon how they look.

Recently my husband and I went to a local adoption agency trying to be placed on a waiting list. We were told that because of my "weight being a facotr" that it would be unlikely that a birth mother would pick and so therefore we were turned down. We are heartbroken. My husband and I are both young, professional, healthy people wanting to be adoptive parents. I had no idea that this was legal and I am outraged at the way we were treated and that this is common place. I know now that in the future we will proceed with caution through this process and ask upfornt if the agency discriminates against a couple because of weight.