Flumesday.com - Obese Parents Excluded from Chinese Adoption

Obese Parents Excluded from Chinese Adoption
As the demand for Chinese adopted babies has recently become greater than the supply, China has made the major U.S. adoption agencies use stricter guidelines for prospective parents. China, the largest provider of adopted children to foreign parents, has decided that a parent who is obese, single, over the age of 50, blind or severely near-sighted, or depressed is unfit to adopt a Chinese baby. Also, the family income required to adopt a Chinese baby has been increased to $80,000 a year. The China Center of Adoption Affairs has not yet publicized the new guidelines and when a Bloomberg reporter called the Beijing office, the person who answered the phone declined comment and refused to give his name. Why so secretive about the new adoption policy? Hmmm. Maybe because the new policy excludes fat people! If you're thinking to yourself, "how will they decide who is too fat to adopt?", I was thinking the same thing. But there's actually an answer. If your body index is greater than 40, meaning about 5'7", 262 pounds, adopting is out of the question. While I have learned living in China that the Chinese are quite fattist, it almost seems silly to cut off the group that probably has the least chance of procreating. And also, from experience, fat people make great parents. And so do the severely near-sighted (love you Dad). But when it comes down to it, the huge number of Chinese orphans, something that used to be a global problem, is now apparently not such a pressing issue. Though when examining the statistics provided by Bloomberg, it still seems like there is a need for adoptive parents. While according to Ministry figures, demand of Chinese babies is growing and supply is shrinking, there is still a vast gap between the number of children entering orphanages and the number being place in overseas homes. Adoption Affairs in China said that last year 13,000 Chinese babies were placed abroad while 66,000 children entered child welfare institutions. Despite the fact that orphaned babies are actual beings who if given the choice, would probably choose a morbidly obese, near-sighted single mother over the Chinese child welfare system, the adoption process in China remains expensive, oppressively complex and more often than not, ends in rejection.

•Bloomberg: China Tightens Child Adoptions to Bar Singles, Obese, Over-50s