A Weightloss and diet forum. WeightLossBanter

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Go Back   Home » WeightLossBanter forum » alt.support.diet newsgroups » General Discussion
Site Map Home Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

death of a fat girl



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old May 24th, 2004, 12:59 AM
NR
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default death of a fat girl

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

death of a fat girl

IS CHRISTINA CORRIGAN'S MOTHER ON TRIAL FOR NEGLECT -- OR FOR HAVING AN
OBESE CHILD?

BY LORI LEIBOVICH | Christina Corrigan, 13, was found dead last November on
the living room floor of her El Cerrito, Calif., home. Her body was covered
with sores, and feces were encrusted within the folds of her skin. Her room
smelled like urine. Food containers were strewn around her body. And
according to the coroner's report, there was evidence that insects had been
feeding on her flesh. At the time of her death, she weighed 680 pounds.

Christina's mother, Marlene Corrigan, has been charged with felony child
endangerment in the death of her daughter. When she was arraigned last
August, Marlene Corrigan pleaded not guilty.

In the courtroom were members of various "fat acceptance" groups, on hand
to provide Corrigan support. They will be there again today when the
preliminary hearing in the Corrigan case begins.

The case became a media feeding-frenzy, with the story of Christina's death
making the front pages of Bay Area newspapers. "A lot of news reports have
focused on the weight of Christina, but that doesn't matter at all," said
Detective Don Horgan of the El Cerrito Police Department, one of the first
officers to arrive on the scene. "She was lying in her own filth. It
wouldn't matter if she was 30 years old or 50 or 80 or if she weighed two
pounds or 5,000 pounds. This case is going to trial because of the
conditions the girl was living in."

But Marlene Corrigan's lawyer, Michael Cardoza of San Francisco, believes
the case is mired in anti-fat bias. Pointing the finger at the
investigating coroner, Cardoza said that no internal autopsy was performed
on Christina's body and that the official cause of death -- congestive
heart failure due to morbid obesity -- is simply a catch-all conclusion
used when obese people die. "Marlene Corrigan asked them to perform an
autopsy but all they did was examine Christina externally," Cardoza said.
"She could have died from choking on a chicken bone! The coroner was simply
lazy."

Regarding the neglect charge, Cardoza denies that the Corrigan house always
looked the way it did on the day Christina died. "Adolescents are not neat.
What was her mother supposed to do, be her kid's maid? Christina showered
and took care of herself." What about Christina's physical condition? "Her
mother never saw any bed sores," Cardoza said. "Marlene made clothes for
her daughter. She wrote a letter to Richard Simmons asking for help.
Christina lived in good condition until the dam broke."

Last week Salon talked with Judy Freespirit of the National Association to
Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA), one of the organizations that rallied
around Corrigan after the death of her daughter.

Why is NAAFA supporting Marlene Corrigan?

Well, I am supporting her because the media is making a circus out of this
case. If this child had weighed 120 pounds and everything else had been
equal, this story would not have made it to Page 30 of the newspaper, let
alone Page 1. It is making front pages because the media has picked up on
the fact that this is about weight. They would not be prosecuting this
woman if the child hadn't weighed so much. Now the prosecutor is saying
that weight is not an issue, which is so obviously a lie -- the issue is
fat. Part of NAAFA's purpose is to educate the public. Anywhere where the
issue is fat, NAAFA is going to come in because a lot of miseducation is
going on in a case like this.

So you think Marlene Corrigan is being targeted primarily because she was
the mother of a fat child?

We're very concerned about the chilling effect this is going to have on
mothers of fat kids. Parents might now start pressuring their kids even
more, because they are afraid they are going to get sent to jail if their
kids get too fat.

What about all the other circumstances in this case -- such as the fact
that Christina was found in terrible condition, seemingly uncared for? You
might be supporting a woman who was a really bad mom.

You are innocent until proven guilty. If she did anything really terrible,
that is not what we are defending. We are defending her right to a fair
trial, to a fair hearing, which she is not going to get if there is the
kind of prejudice that has traditionally existed in the courts over the
issue of fat. This is a single mother, working full time, with a
13-year-old child. Let's say she wasn't clean -- you can't wipe a
13-year-old's ass.

Still, people are looking at this case thinking it is horrific and that
someone should be held responsible, because this child was a child. And
that someone would be the adult living with her, in this case her mother.

The information about how to deal with physical things for someone that
size is not readily available. Over the years we have developed a lot of
things, like gadgets you can use to help reach places that are hard to
reach, but this mother would not have known about that. We know that the
child didn't go to a doctor for a number of years; she refused. Any single
fat person will tell you that going to the doctor is a nightmare. To try to
get this child to go, when she can't physically lift the child -- there are
a whole lot of assumptions that people are making about what this mother
should have done. They didn't walk in her shoes.

Couldn't a doctor have come to the house?

The family had Kaiser Permanente insurance. Have you ever tried to get a
doctor to do this? This is all conjecture, but I think that this mother
must have been quite overwhelmed. I will be at the trial to find out what
is happening, and even if she is guilty of some things -- there are things
that she is not guilty of that she is being prosecuted for, like being
responsible for the child who weighed 680 pounds.

People have been astounded at Christina's size. In NAAFA's view, is there
such a thing as being too fat?

It is not for us to decide that. We don't know why she weighed what she
did. It is very possible that there was something physically wrong. This
child, until she was 3, was on some kind of medication for the treatment of
grand mal seizures. When she stopped taking it, she suddenly gained a lot
of weight. This tells us something. She fell through the medical system's
cracks. You cannot eat enough to weigh 680 pounds at age 13 if your body is
functioning properly.

In your opinion, who is responsible for Christina Corrigan's death?

I think that there were a lot of people who were responsible. I think that
the medical establishment failed her. She did not get adequate medical
care, or she would not have gotten so terrified that she wouldn't go see a
doctor. I think the schools failed her, they let her fall through the
cracks when she was supposed to go from elementary school to junior high. I
think that a society that tells her that she is not OK, that she is a
freak, has failed her. I don't think that there is anybody who isn't
guilty.

Including her mother?

Her mother is part of this culture. She is oppressed in this culture the
way everybody else is. I am not saying she is guilty of anything that could
put her in jail. I don't know. We will see what happens at the trial. I am
not saying she's not guilty, and I am not saying she is guilty. She is no
more guilty than you and me, who allow this kind of attitude to keep going
without rationally looking at it.

But you and I weren't living in the house.

We don't know the details. The mother was raised in this culture and must
have felt that she wasn't a good mother. I don't know this, but everybody
was telling her she was a bad mother. Her own sister turned her into the
authorities several years ago. That doesn't mean she wasn't doing the best
that she could do. It is an impossible situation. It is impossible to be
the parent of a child this big. If the child had any other disability --
and I would say that a 680-pound child at the age of 13 is disabled, she
couldn't walk -- the mother would not ordinarily be blamed for the child's
disability, except in the case of crack. If she had seizures, or was in a
wheelchair, people would have seen the mother as almost a martyr. But with
a child who is fat, not only would she have to deal with this disabled
child, but with the disapproval of everyone around her and the blame that,
somehow, she should have stopped her daughter from eating.


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: N/A

iQA/AwUBQLE3xTL3IlvsWvnjEQIfOACgsvMIZ7NOCWNY5kW2TR9zWW HW9l8An2mi
MQS6oiP6TmaczP2P8PBgWNnb
=jU0I
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----



  #2  
Old May 24th, 2004, 10:09 PM
alexbrown77
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default death of a fat girl

I completly think that the mother is responsible as they are in most
child obesity cases. When children are young, they do not know the
differences between foods and what it will do to their bodies. They
depend on their parents to buy foods for them and they should be able
to depend on their parents to teach them healthy foods from "fun
foods" similar to responsibility. Now, I am not saying that parents
should prevent their children from having any junk food but rather,
teach them that they should eat it in small amounts along with healthy
food. As someone who was not taught that when Iwas younger, I had to
do a lot of work on my own when I got older to learn how food effected
me...that should be parents responsibility.
 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Hidden Cam Girl Next Store 1483 Virtual General Discussion 0 May 5th, 2004 10:43 PM
Dally Death Spiral Dally General Discussion 27 April 17th, 2004 06:54 PM
Artcile- ObesityWill Top Smoking As Cause of Death Carol Frilegh General Discussion 7 March 12th, 2004 09:20 PM
Tragic end to little girl... ~Deb~ General Discussion 10 February 17th, 2004 03:58 AM
Hospital Halts Stapling Procedures After Death Julianne General Discussion 12 November 9th, 2003 05:03 AM


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 04:45 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 WeightLossBanter.
The comments are property of their posters.