Posted On: April 3, 2008, 4:16 pm CDT

Posted By: lastbat

Dawn, I never insulted you and I took the time to read the articles you cited - hence my comment on those articles.

I stated in my first comment that I don't know enough about this particular procedure to comment on the case. And I still don't. What I do know is that being that big is not healthy in the main. I also assume that since he went in to have his stomach altered to lose weight that he was not all ripped lean muscle and bone - that he was obese and over-fat.

It would be a rare case indeed if he gained all the weight while an adult. So I'm assuming his parents were not watching out for him during his teenage years and allowed him to get big without intervening effectively. The sports he played in may, and probably did, have an effect on his decisions, but his parents also failed to guide him appropriately and effectively. I don't place the entire blame on them because the zeitgeist of America does place a lot of value on athletes and puts out some very disturbing thoughts of what athletes should look like. And then there's the responsibility that should be assigned to the kid because nobody held him down and force-fed him.

People who become morbidly obese and wish to become healthy do need compassion. They also need to be held accountable for their own actions. Just because this is a sensitive subject does not mean we shouldn't be frank about the issue. We should be frank because of how sensitive the subject is. *****-footing around helps nobody.