March 19, 2007
Oakland, CA – A 13 year old New York girl needs your help and it's as simple as writing a letter and/or making a phone call.
A New York Family Court ordered that 13 year-old Kayla be removed from her parents' custody because of their failure to address her morbid obesity. Kayla was originally removed from her home in 2003 because of concerns for her health based on her weight of 250 pounds. After several years of bouncing around in the court system, Kayla was returned to her parents but with certain conditions, including regular trips to a gym and participating in a nutritional program.
Kayla's doctors claim her size is "simply due to excessive caloric intake and a sedentary lifestyle" and that her "weight problems are not organic in nature and are the result of poor parental modeling and control of food intake." The New York Court has decided that the parents are in willful violation of the custody conditions in spite of the fact that they find no indications of physical abuse, emotional abuse or other danger to the child.
Although there is no precedent in New York for removing a child from parental custody due to morbid obesity, the court cited several other states, including California , Iowa, Indiana, New Mexico, and Texas, as having "recognized morbid obesity as an actionable issue."
The National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance would like to remind the courts of New York that in both New Mexico (Anamarie Martinez-Regino) and Indiana (Dakota Main), the courts REVERSED their decisions and restored custody to the parents because the parents had done nothing wrong and the states' controlled environments did not result in a significant change in the size of the children. In both of these cases, terrible mental harm was done to the children and the parents.
Children are not removed from the homes of smoking parents or alcoholic parents. Why can a child be removed from his/her family because of the size of the child? Let's help put an end to this travesty.
NAAFA is asking you to write a letter to the local and state officials listed below asking them to do everything in their power to reunite Kayla with her family. Snail mail and phone calls are most effective but e-mail will help. This family's mental and emotional well-being must be put first.
Chemung County Legislature
John H. Hazlett Building
203 Lake Street
PO Box 588
Elmira, NY 14902-0588
Phone: 607.737.2066
Fax: 607.737.2851
The Chemung County Legislature is comprised of 15 elected legislators representing the 15 legislative districts within the County. The legislature is the legislative, appropriating, and policy determining body of the County.
U.S. Congressman: Randy Kuhl of the 19th District of New York
Bath District Office
P.O. Box 153
22 Buell Street
Bath, New York 14810
Phone: 607.776.9142
Fax: 607.776.9159
Email webform: http://www.house.gov/formkuhl/IMA/issue.htm
New York Senators of the 110th Congress
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D - NY) United States Senate
476 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: 202.224.4451
Fax: 202.228.0282
TTY/TDD: 202.224.6821
Email webform: http://clinton.senate.gov/contact/webform.cfm
Senator Charles E. Schumer (D - NY)
757 Third Avenue
Suite 17-02
New York, NY 10017
Phone: 212.486.4430
Fax: 212.486.7693
TDD: 212.486.7803
Email webform: http://schumer.senate.gov/SchumerWebsite/contact/webform.cfm
Founded in 1969, the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance is a non-profit human rights organization dedicated to improving the quality of life for fat people. NAAFA works to eliminate discrimination based on body size and provide fat people with the tools for self-empowerment through public education, advocacy, and member support.
On the web: http://www.naafa.org
For more information contact:
Peggy Howell, Public Relations Chairman
National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA)
e-mail: naafa_pr@yahoo.com phone: (707)246-6116