Being Overweight, Fat Is the Most Common Reason For Bullying, Says Study

Kids with weight issues are among the common subjects of bullying, a new study reveals. This follows the view of most adults from four different countries who, when asked for the reason children are bullied, stressed it is weight and not race, religion, physical disability or sexual orientation, according to The New York Times.

Researchers surveyed over 2,800 adults in the U.S., Canada, Iceland and Australia, and at least 70 percent of the respondents believed weight is the most common ground for bullying, U.S. News has learned.

The report suggests that almost three-fourths of the respondents claimed that schools and anti-bullying policies need to address this issue, which they described as "serious" or "very serious."

Unfortunately, according to Dr. Rebecca Puhl, deputy director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at the University of Connecticut in Hartford and lead author of the study, most state anti-bullying laws fail to protect overweight children. There are no federal laws that guarantee equal treatment for overweight and obese people, New York Times has learned.

"It is actually legal to discriminate on the basis of weight, and that sends a message that bias, unfair treatment or bullying of overweight children is tolerable," Dr. Puhl said.

While the rate of obesity rise, people are encouraged to take responsibility for their weight and changing behaviors, which built a perception that obese children are to blame for their weight problems and, in a way, are deserving of the offensive treatment from bullies.

"There's also a widespread misperception that stigma may not be such a bad thing, and that maybe criticism will get people motivated to lose weight," Dr. Puhl said. However, she thinks the opposite is true. People who are weight-bullied often engage in unhealthy behaviors and students who are picked for being fat from their gym classes resort to skipping their class to avoid being bullied.

With the alarming rates of childhood obesity in these and many other countries, both school and policy-level remedies have to address bullying due to weight issues on a broader level to improve the quality of life of the obese youth.

At least 60 percent of the adults from the different countries believe that schools, teachers, parents, healthcare providers and governments are influential in preventing weight-related bullying, according to the said study.

Dr. Puhl also reveals that their study shows a strong public support for their policy measures. "Our findings echo recent research from the U.S. showing that parents favor strengthening school-based policies and state laws to address weight-based bullying," she says. "The time may be ripe to implement school-level policy changes to ensure that vulnerable youth are protected."

The study is published in the journal, "Pediatric Obesity."