OBESE CHILDREN ARE MORE LIKELY TO BE BULLIED STUDY

Obese children are more likely to be bullied, researchers of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor report following a study that has led them to that conclusion. We are very happy they noticed but this is the sad reality heavier children had to put up with as far as back as any living person can remember and no sophisticated expensive study was required to come to what all parents of fat children and the children themselves already know. The fat kid has always been the victim of his peers’ ridicule, bullying and rejection. The last kid to be picked up on a team, often occupying the last seat in the classroom, tripped or shoved down the stairway, his lunch stolen from him for his own good. The abuse taken is often daily and year round.

You’d think that adults would make an effort to make growing up as a fat kid a little easier? Kids are often lectured and made to feel guilty for their weight by their parents, teachers, school nurse, doctor and public health messages that constantly remind them that they should lose weight whatever it takes if they don’t want to suffer disease and die young. The media still has a tendency to glamorize thinness and ridicule fatness. The line between educating children towards healthy habits and creating an anti-fat psychosis among them is very thin and many have developed eating disorders, depression and even suicide brought about their inability to conform to the ideal weight that public health constantly hammers into their malleable minds.

Public health contributes more than its share of bullying tactics that we feel should be halted immediately to give place to more individual approaches for the obese children. Their psychological and physical well being depend on it.

Obese Children Are More Likely to Be Bullied