Being Obese Can Attract Bullies

Obese children are more likely to be bullied regardless of gender, race, socioeconomic status, social skills or academic achievement.

Those are the findings of the study “Weight status as a predictor of being bullied in third through sixth grades,” which is available online now and will be published in the June issue of the journal Pediatrics. Julie C. Lumeng, M.D., assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases at the University of Michigan’s C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, is lead author of the study.

Childhood obesity and bullying are both pervasive public health problems. Obesity among children in the United States has risen to epidemic proportions with 17 percent of 6 to 11 year olds estimated to be obese between 2003 and 2006. In addition, parents of obese children rate bullying as their top health concern and past studies have shown that obese children who are bullied experience more depression anxiety and loneliness.

The objective of this study was to determine the relationship between childhood obesity and being bullied in third, fifth, and sixth grades. While studies on bullying and obesity in children have been conducted before, none had controlled for factors such as socioeconomic status, race, social skills and academic achievement.

Further, this study is unique in that it specifically looks at the age range when bullying peaks – ages 6 to 9. Read more

Young Americans Too Fat To Fight

The proportion of young Americans that are too fat to fight or serve in the military is so high that it poses a threat to US national security, according to a group of retired military leaders who are calling on Congress to pass new child nutrition legislation to address the problem.

Writing in the Washington Post on Friday, retired US army generals John M. Shalikashvili and Hugh Shelton, referred to several sources, including the US Army’s own analysis of national data that shows as of 2005, and the figures have changed little since, 27 per cent of Americans aged 17 to 24, some 9 million young adults, were too overweight to serve in the military.

The leading medical reason recruits are rejected for military service in the US today is being overweight or obese, wrote Shalikashvili and Shelton, both members of the executive advisory council of Mission: Readiness, a nonprofit organization of retired senior military leaders, who referred also to a recent report from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research that showed over the last 15 years the proportion of potential recruits who have not passed their physical exam because of their weight has gone up nearly 70 per cent.

This is backed up by data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) who report that the number of states where 40 per cent or more of young adults are overweight or obese has risen dramatically from only one in 1998 to 39 in 2008.

This not the first time the military has spoken out about how the health of America’s children poses a threat to national security: the last time was in 1945 when they expressed concern about the poor health and nutrition of potential recruits, and Congress responded by creating a national school lunch program. Read more

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