Minnesota Institute of Public Health

A new study found unsurprising results: children in grades 3 through 6 who are obese are much more likely to be bullied than their normal weight peers. The surprising part seems to be that these kids are bullied more even if they possess good social skills or do well in school.

The professional docs journal Pediatrics recently profiled this study. Lead investigator Julie Lumeng, MD, a professor of pediatrics at the U of Michigan - Ann Arbor and her colleagues tracked 800 children in ten cities across America, comparing their responses to incidents of bullying etc, with their body mass index.

Seems that in our health promotion work, two big issues overlap here: body image and the propensity to pick on vulnerable people. We have a lot of work to do.

While obese kids get repeated messages about how they are, versus how they ought to be, they can easily get caught up in a vicious circle of depression, isolation, anger and frustration. And of course one frequent coping strategy is—overeating.

I believe we need to make sure we stay very positive in promoting better nutrition and physical activity especially for kids. We can't ‘admire the problem' to the extent we quietly bury hope for kids who struggle with their weight.

Sylvia Rimm, Ph.D, a professor and author of Rescuing the Emotional Lives of Overweight Kids, suggests their extra weight makes obese kids even more susceptible targets of bullying, because of their lower self esteem.

Teachers and parents have such a huge prevention role to play in this. Canadian professor of psychology Wendy Craig calls teachers "social architects" who can do so very much to set tone about what is OK and what is not OK.  Another study found that parents who share ideas and conversation with their children about this issue and who communicate guidelines and standards around this topic were up to 40 percent less likely to have their kids bully others.

Two major issues of our time -- obesity and bullying -- collide. Talk about the need for connections in prevention!

What are the best resources you know of, or use, to help address this confounding issue?

- JJ