Obese kids more vulnerable to bullies

Obese kids more vulnerable to bullies

(Health.com) -- Children in Grades 3 through 6 who are obese are more likely to be bullied than their normal-weight peers, a new study has found.

No one who has attended grade school -- or who has even the slightest familiarity with children -- will be surprised by these findings. What is surprising, however, is that obese children are bullied more often even if they possess qualities that can discourage bullies, such as having good social skills or doing well in school.

"When we started this study, I really suspected that we might find that the obesity or overweight might not be the driving force," says the lead author of the study, Julie Lumeng, M.D., a professor of pediatrics at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor. "What we found is that it didn't matter. No matter how good your social skills, if you were overweight or obese you were more likely to be bullied."

In the study, which appears this week in the journal Pediatrics, Lumeng and her colleagues followed more than 800 children -- all born in 1991 -- from 10 cities across the U.S. When the children were in the third, fifth, and sixth grades, the researchers surveyed teachers, mothers, and the children themselves about whether they were bullied, and also surveyed the adults about the children's social skills. They then compared these responses with the children's body mass index, a simple ratio of height and weight.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/05/03/obesity.bullying/index.html?hpt=C2

seriously. falls under "studies that reconfirm the obvious"

I think there is something twisted, sick and sad about anyone that bullies because they can get away with it, and I'm betting it starts at a very early age.

i see it all the time

i arrest people who are essentially adult bullies, all the time.

a cursory study of their history consistently shows a looooong history of such behavior. ime.

I also wore glasses (still do)

:eyes:

since they are the different ones.




















Disclaimer: I'm only making a point. No, I don't believe skinny kids should be bullied. I don't thing ANYONE should be bullied.

Comparatively there are merely a handful of powerful orgs who hold all of the power, when The People could easily rise up and start fighting for morality and the betterment of all...yet so far, won't.

Which is to say, you'd think the overwight kids would outnumber the skinny ones

I went to a home-based daycare, and the lady who ran it was rather pudgy, as was her daughter who was my age. I was a quiet kid and would never have said a thing about it, but apparently the daycare lady's way of propping up her daughter's self-esteem was to tease me endlessly about being too skinny.

I was always a skinny kid, and I used to get teased all the time. Thinking back on it, it was mostly by adults. And this was in the late 70s and through the 80s, when it was more common than not that young kids were thin.

n/t

that funding could be rounded up! WHO doesn't already know this? I went to grade school in the fifties and it was true then and I haven't noticed any change since.

What was notable is that it's the obese kids who are bullied more often, not overweight kids.

When I was in school, it was the obese and overweight kids who bullied us smaller children. The last paragraph of the article bears that out too.

>When I was in school, it was the obese and overweight kids who bullied us smaller children. The last paragraph of the article bears that out too.<

The article mentions that previous studies showed a tendency towards bullying being done by children who were obese, but recent findings do not support this.

THIS I found most interesting, and see it on a daily basis at DU:

>One reason that children might be more apt to pick on their overweight classmates is that they are taking after adults, says Davis.

"Children pick up behaviors from adults, so we always have to keep in mind how we're modeling respect for others around multiple issues, including weight," he says. "Imagine how many signals kids get about weight just by hearing conversations by adults or seeing advertisements on TV. The messages are everywhere in terms of trying to control weight and be a different size than you are right now."<

does not support this. In fact, it appears that the new study leader has found some explanation for why this behavior might be so. Children who lack impulse control, etc.

I find it interesting also that kids pick up their cues from adults, which isn't surprising in the least, and as parents spend less time with their kids and we become more cold-hearted as a society in general, it doesn't bode well. But then again, I listen to my aunts who went to school in the 60s and 70s, and they say it wasn't unusual or frowned upon to bully and call other kids retards or cripple, or any number of horrid labels, that were totally ignored and condoned by teachers.

because of being male and so skinny.... not "manly". at least with youngest son, he is strong and hefty. doesnt give the youngest a pass when a kid wants to name call.

gotta be perfectly aligned with societies demand. but even if you are... there is ALWAYS something else to be cruel/tease about if a bully goes after a kid

I too have a skinny son and one who is built more stocky. Oldest skinny son is/was the one that was teased the most, for being so thin. Younger son is not immune to teasing, but in today's world even though he is technically slightly overweight, he fits right in basically.

who's actually said that perhaps, the bullying needs to stop.

After all, it's "safe", isn't it? If you're not the one at the receiving end, it just doesn't matter, does it?

:eyes:

Bullies often never grow up--just taller and older. Adult bullies pick on the heavyset all the time. I'm fed up with being bullied, especially by teenagers and young adults who think their elders owe them a living.

It's always surprising to me how quickly bullies will find something else to do when you call them on their bad behavior.

Stand up for yourself. Even if your voice shakes while you're doing it.

I remember well.

But I wonder if these days, when so many children are so overweight or obese, the merely-overweight kids are spared teasing or bullying since they look like everyone else?

and for healthy eating etc.

actually that doctor on there sort of already is

obesity isn't healthy but even if all kids where in perfect physical condition they'd just find some other random attribute to pick on.

shit, at my school kids with the wrong colour of hair got bullied. kids will find an excuse.

"Overweight children are caught in a vicious circle of self-destructive behavior, Rimm says. "They're inactive, and they're sad kids, and they use eating as gratification," she says. "Of course, the effect is that continued eating is almost their only source of satisfaction, and so it's a terrible cycle."

Protecting overweight kids -- socially and physically --requires helping them break this cycle, Rimm adds.

"A key thing is to discover their strengths and get them involved and active in extracurricular activities," she says. "If they concentrate only on their weight, they're not going to build confidence.""

Rimm can go fuck himself. Any parent who gets their kid to lose weight because they are being bullied about it (as opposed to for sensible health related reasons) is a fucking idiot.

Even if a kid did stop getting bullied after losing weight some other poor little bastard would take his place as a victim. The idea that you can reduce bullying by getting rid of kids who have something different about them is witless.