Welcome to Gaia! ::

This is an entirely different topic, but it's one I'm sensitive on. You have to be careful what you classify as stress, and as someone with serious health issues that aren't really readily known or accepted about I get told something like that all the time. And it sucks. Why? Because I did that. I ignored my "stress" and my sickness and all of whatever and I tried to just live my life. Instead of getting better and realizing that there was really nothing wrong with me, and that I was just being overly dramatic, I went from a straight A student to a D student, I had a chronic sinus/respiratory infection for a period of four months (that was just the worst of it) and days when I honestly couldn't move. I would walk to the living room and be so tired I had to nap. But I had had blood tests, and I wasn't anemic, and I had days when I was feeling alright, so everyone (except my family, thank Heaven, because they lived with me and saw it) assumed I was just faking it. And then my doctor gave me a diagnosis that basically said "the only thing we can do for you is to tell you to rest, because we aren't sure what causes it" and everyone took that to mean that I was lying. Either that or they tried to slap all these other diagnosis onto me. "Weeeell my brother in law's cousin's daughter's husband had this and it has one similar symptom to you so it must be the same thing." It even got to the point where one of my teachers was spreading rumors behind my back and saying that she was sure I wasn't sick.

*cough*

That was totally unrelated to anything, but my point is, there's stress, and then there's the things about people you don't see. Not only that, but being told that you're really not sick when you don't actually know anything can add stress that makes a bad situation a hell of a lot worse. Yeah people jump the gun in this society, but you can't just make blanket statements like that, because you don't really know what's going on, most of the time. I mean, people didn't believe that Dissociate Identity Disorder existed for years and years, but that doesn't mean it's just bogus. And being "gay" was listed as a mental health problem for a while too. I guess I just think that "stress" is a cover term for a lot of potentially more serious things, and that saying "oh all this fuss that's made about stress" can hurt and float over a lot of honestly sick people who don't have another word.

When I think, what healthy things my mother stuffed down my throat...

Well, you have to divide between the urge to feed you child and the urge to feed you child, so it's quiet...
The last part is definitive some kind of abuse. You should not have babies if you cannot stand their noises or handle them at least a wee bit properly.
I don't think, I will be a perfect mother, but some mistakes I wouldn't do.
I would drive my kid(s) insane with vitamins like my mother and with being overprotective, but stuffing it till it shuts up? Oh my... cry

Uggh codeine = lose... I don't take it regularly, but my doctor makes sure I keep some on hand. My dad doesn't really buy it either, but then, my dad fails so hard, and he's not really around. *hugs*

And stress, yeah it does have repercussions, although I know that with me there's a point where yes being stressed makes me sick, but getting sick also stresses me out, and so it's sort of hard to distinguish which is when, if that makes sense. With me, it's like, I get nailed really really hard after I do stuff, but I do have good days, which are the only times when some people see me, so they assume that I'm just fine. 'Tis lame.

That's the point where I would've brought you to a very good neurologist or therapist to check if your symptoms are caused by a depression. At least your symptoms are so similar to mine that the assumption is quite close...


Now back to topic. I do agree that this stuffing of children is a kind of child abuse. But it's also a social problem. I'm pretty sure that those overfed children come from families with a difficult social background caused by poverty. Those families don't necessary live below the poverty level, but at least much closer to it than the average middle-class citizen. That means often undereducation and a bad access to health treatment or even healthy foods, because it's just to expensive.

That's no excuse for this kind of abuse, but an explanation how it developes. Make those parents learn how to treat a child well and if they don't want to learn make them suffer the consequences. Make the people learn that a child is not a toy, but a being that brings responsibility.

I know this sounds radical, but here in Germany we're facing some similar problems. Not overfeeding, but cases of child abuse as well: Some teenage mothers that finished school after 10th grade and either don't want to work or just want the child benefits they get from the government. Of course, you cannot (and mustn't) forbid those people to become pregnant. But it's important to make those wannabe-mothers realize that the child isn't there for them, but they're there for the child!