failure to thrive

In an interesting intersection of my interests in food and foster parenting, there's an emergent tendency to view extreme childhood obesity as a problem of medical neglect. Medical neglect can be grounds for removing children from their home and placing them in foster care, as seen in this recent case in Ohio: An Ohio third-grader who weighs more than 200 pounds has been taken from his family and placed into foster care after county social workers said his mother wasn't doing enough to control his weight. The Plain Dealer reports that the Cleveland 8-year-old is considered severely obese and…