“THE number of overweight children is rising, a study has found that obese children under ten are still more likely to be bullied by thinner classmates even if they are popular or smart.”

As parents we must set the example and be aware of our health from all points of view.

15 May 2010, In many cultures fat is synonymous with good fortune and prosperity. You come from a well endowed home.

Which is fine until your body becomes over endowed and starts spilling over. And you are not yet ten. Regrettably, the odds of children growing out of it are slim, if one can play on the word. Parents, in their froth of fondness commit great folly. For years they will endearingly believe that the child, little apple of their eye, is only enjoying puppy fat and it will disappear. Puppy fat has been a good excuse and further compounded by the larger family in which grandparents add to the conspiracy and feed their children’s brood with calories and kindness.

They could not be more unkind. Yet, the awareness level has done little to wake everyone up to this self indulgence and its harmfulness. On the contrary there are more fat children now in wealthy high per capital societies than before. We continue to equate plumpness with success and good breeding.

And if we do not get the fact that we might as well be poisoning our children by the ongoing delusion that they are big boned new research shows that not only are the couch potatoes lazy as drones they also are soft targets.

ALTHOUGH THE number of overweight children is rising, a study has found that obese children under ten are still more likely to be bullied by thinner classmates even if they are popular or smart.

Researchers from the University of Michigan found that obese children are picked on more, regardless of gender, race, social skills, or academic achievement.

Dr. Julie C. Lumeng, who led the study, said she found the study slightly surprising and “disturbing.”

“Unlike in the 1980s so many kids are obese now. In some schools, half the class may be overweight … so I really thought that maybe being obese really doesn’t result in being bullied as much anymore. I was wrong,” she told Reuters Health. A quarter of the children reported being bullied, although their mothers said about 45 per cent of them were bullied.

According to the researchers, the odds of being bullied were 63 per cent higher for an obese child compared to a healthy-weight peer.

Children can be cruel and in their minds nicknames like Fatty, Jumbo, Big Martha, Roundy are par for the course and not hurtful.

One amazing fact is Lumeng also thought she’d find protective factors, like having good social skills and doing well in school.

“I thought maybe this would protect obese kids from being bullied. But no matter how we ran and re-ran the analysis, the link between being obese and being bullied remained,” Lumeng said.

“Parents of obese children rate bullying as their top health concern,” Lumeng and her colleagues note in their report published in Pediatrics. Obese children who are bullied also suffer more depression, anxiety and loneliness. “There is no simple solution to the problem,” Lumeng told Reuters Health. “I think it reflects the general prejudice against obese people,” and children, even at a very young age, pick up on this.

One of the observations that really stood out to me was that one parental characteristic that increased the likelihood of child bullying were parents getting angry with their child frequently and feeling that their child often did things to bother them.  This goes back to how it is a domino affect many times.  A boss gets angry with dad, dad comes home and get angry with mom or the kids, the kids get angry with the dog, sibling, or schoolmate and then it just continues.  The anger and frustration becomes bullying.

On the other side though it was found that parents also played a protective role. Those who shared ideas and talked with their child, and those who met most of their child’s friends were less likely to have children who bully.  Keeping those lines of communication open are so important to our children.  For them to know that they have someone that is willing to listen and hear their concerns and stories is a way of teaching and demonstrating empathy, which is key to preventing bullying and victims of bullies.

Our child and for that matter ourselves if we are being bullied at work, can grow in this area as we build confidence, learn both concepts and skills and develop a support system around us to combat bullies.

The very first step is recognizing that being a target is not our fault and that we do not have to put up with it continuing.  In fact we can do something about it whether we are a child or an adult.  In the next post I will discuss how to know before our child admits it – if they are a target of a bully.