Increasing animosity directed at obese kids
A study finds that obese children are enduring more abuse

Research reported in this month's issue of Psychological Bulletin,
showed overweight children are stigmatized by their peers, and even by
parents and teachers, as early as age 3.

Clinical psychologist Rebecca M. Puhl of Yale University's Rudd Center
for Food Policy and Obesity and Janet Latner, UH-Manoa assistant
professor of psychology reviewed four decades' worth of studies on how
overweight or obese children are victimized.

"The stigmatization directed at obese children by their peers, parents,
educators and others is pervasive and often unrelenting," the
researchers wrote.

"We looked at all the negative consequences that can result," Latner
said.

Children who are rejected, teased, bullied or suffer other abuse because
of their weight are two to three times more likely to have suicidal
thoughts and suffer other health issues, such as high blood pressure and
eating disorders, the researchers found.

They said the quality of life for obese kids who are victims of taunting
and physical bullying is comparable to that of kids who have cancer.

Studies reviewed by the psychologists showed parents and educators also
are biased against overweight children.

"Perhaps the most surprising source of weight stigma towards youths is
parents," Puhl and Latner reported.

"It is possible that parents may take out their frustration, anger and
guilt on their overweight child by adopting stigmatizing attitudes and
behavior, such as making critical and negative comments toward their
children," they said.

Earlier, Latner and and her colleagues studied 261 children, ages 10 to
13, when she was a professor at the University of Canterbury in New
Zealand. They found a strong link between how much they disliked obese
peers and their exposure to television, video games and magazines, she
said.

8 responses total.

I found the correlation between television, video games and magazines
interesting.  Usually television and video games are demonized because
they instill lower class attitudes we don't approve of (violence,
substituting video games for homework, etc).  Here, they correlate with
attitudes many nice, educated upper class people hold themselves.  

The anti-fat messages in mainstream media are often very subtle. I 
know that I hardly noticed them for years. But of course I *did* 
notice them and internalized them. I think this is very common. And if 
I, as a fat person myself, could pick up the fat hatred from the media 
when I should presumably know better, what chance do non-fat people, 
especially children, have?

I am still quite amazed at the anti-fat bias that exists among very 
well educated upper middle class progressive people. People who would 
in every other circumstance believe that it isnt ok to judge people 
based upon their appearance or lifestyle have no trouble passing 
judgment on fat people. 

I am not at all surprised that fat kids get picked on. I was lucky in 
that regard because I wasnt a fat kid so I didnt start getting the 
self esteem hits until I was older. I cant even imagine how damaging 
that would have been to me. 

I didn't need to a study to tell me how 'abused' I was/am for being
heavier than the norm.  Though its great to have a study to kind of
validate this issue and to make it more public  knowledge.

On kind of a side-note, there's a new book out having to deal with being
fat. broke, and/or  lonely and how to deal with these issues.  It looks
pretty interesting. It appears to be  more common in females than males
but it does occur frequently enough with the guys. A  couple days ago, I
entered an item on this topic in the women's conference but  apparently,
no one reads that conference any more.  I avoided posting in agora
because  of all of the nit-picking that often occurs in that
conference...  

What is the title of the book, denise. 

I must have missed your post in the woman's conference. I'll have to 
go check it out. 

I never saw anything in femme.  I just now did a search for new
responses since July 1, and still didn't find anything.  Which cf did
you enter it in?

Hmm, maybe it didn't actually post, it might've been one of the times I
got bumped  offline...  I may have to reenter something!

The title of the book is "Fat, Broke & Lonely No More!"  Subtitled: 
"Your Personal Solution  to Overeating, Overspending, and Looking for
Love in All the Wrong Places" bu Victoria  Moran.  I saw it on display
earlier in the week at Nicola's, it's also in the self-help section  at
B&N.

[Ok, the item is now in the women's conference as item # 150.]

Now back to our regularly scheduled topic of Obesity and Abuse.  :-)

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