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JEFFERSON CITY, MO. -- Childhood obesity is a growing problem in the country and now people are questioning whether or not parents should lose custody of their overweight children.

A commentary in the Journal of the American Medical Association said the extremely obese children should temporarily be put in foster care so they can get the diet and exercise care they need.

In our facebook story of the day KRCG’s Meghan Lane found out what you thought.

The authors of the commentary argue the government needs to step in and act in the child’s best interest and get them the help that for whatever reasons the parent cannot provide.

Roughly 2 million U.S. children are extremely obese.

Some of those children have obesity-related conditions such as Type 2 diabetes, breathing difficulties and liver problems that could kill them by age 30.

That’s why some doctors say the government needs to step in.

Many of you say instead of the government intervening and possibly putting the child in a foster care type system the family should be educated.

“If families were all educated on the types of foods children should eat, the balanced diets they should eat, how to even grow their own vegetables, how to prepare their food, if they were educated on it, there isn’t any reason to break up a family,” Jefferson City parent Christine Chapman said.

“I don’t think a kid should be taken out of the home, even if they are struggling with obesity or not I just feel like the parents should be educated on what they should do,” parent Edward McComb said.

Mccomb believed taking the child away from their family is too drastic.

“As far as coming into a home and taking a kid over something as far as food, ya know if a kid had been beaten up or wasn’t being fed, then I would say yes, but a kid eating too much, I don’t think that’s grounds for them to be taken out of the home, that’s a big step,” McComb said.

Chapman thinks families should be more active

“If kids were doing more things out like this, fishing and playing games outside in their yards, playing out on the water instead of sitting inside playing video games a lot of that stuff probably wouldn’t be a problem,” Chapman said.

Advocates for removing the extremely obese child from the home may be a more ethical solution than having a child undergo weight-loss surgery which carries physical risks and can be irreversible.

The authors believe government involvement may be justifiable because of the serious health risks and the parents' chronic failure to address medical problems.