Monday, May 03, 2004

A study was released recently that showed that obese children are more likely to be bullies or to be bullied. CNN reports this study shows that "being fat endangers emotional as well as physical health."

Believe it or not, I was a child myself some time ago and I remember that most anything different would get you called out and made fun of. Curly hair, braces, good grades, anything out of the ordinary. While it's true that unless a child is a carbon copy of every other third-grader out there it is more likely that she will be a target of bullying, being fat is not more of a target than any other difference. And as for larger children doing the bullying, that is most likely a defense mechanism so that they are not made a target themselves. I know this is a totally wild concept but perhaps instead of chiding our obese children for making themselves a target of bullies, perhaps we should try and teach all our children to be open and accepting of differences. Then once that issue is addressed the fat children should be taught how to eat healthily, but understand that they are special just the way they are.

No no, that's just tooo crazy. Lets name all our little girls Jessica, give them all blond hair, blue eyes, thin figures, and white skin. Make sure they wear the same clothes as all the other girls and that they do perfectly mediocre in school so as not to attract attention to themselves and count all their calories at the age of 8. Have them do cheerleading and Home Ec, never basketball and Wood Shop. Then likely they will grow up to be vapid obedient boring anorexic women. But at least they will not have been teased as small children.

Study: Obese kids more prone to bully, be bullied [CNN]
Demonizing Fat in the War on Weight [NYT]