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Emotional Effects Of Obesity In Children

By Ajanta Sen

Is your kid being bullied at school? The word “bullying” means making fun of someone. Nowadays, bullying is spreading like a plague.

People in different spheres of life have to confront bullying sooner or later at some point of time.

Only a very few lucky people have never been the victims of bullying. The majority of the mass that is targeted for bullying is the school-going kids.

School-going kids, especially those who are obese are harassed at school very badly.

The bullies make fun of the obese kids, and over the time this bantering can make your kid emotionally weaker, which can result in a low self-esteem.

The bullied kids start skipping classes and, sometimes, they even stop going to school totally. It is probably the most heart-wrenching thing for a parent to watch their kid becoming so scared and panicky.

Even if you are a lucky parent, still seeing someone else facing this situation may make you think why obese kids are made fun of in school?

Following are some important points in this regard that you need to ponder upon:

Emotional Effects Of Obesity In Children

Know The Actual Meaning Of Bullying
Bullying means meaningless and deliberate efforts to hurt others. It can be verbal or physical. Sometimes, it may be direct and, at times, it can be of an indirect nature.

Bullying can involve one or more people to have negative feelings against a single person.

Obese kids who are the victims of bullying are taunted, thumped, called names, embarrassed and overlooked persistently either in the social media or personally.

The victims may feel isolated, forlorn, angry, afraid, dejected or even devastated.

Know About The Bullies And Victims
Obese school girls and boys are more prone to be the victims of bullying. Boys are kicked and punched, whereas girls are neglected, disliked and are made the targets of gossips.

Studies say that, no matter how rich the kid is or how good he is at his studies, if he is obese he will always be at a greater risk of being bullied.

Emotional Effects Of Obesity In Children

Kinds And Forms Of Bullying
There are many kinds of bullying such as physical bullying, verbal bullying, racial bullying, cyber bullying, social isolation, etc.

There are 2 forms of bullying that is direct and indirect. Direct bullying includes calling names, chasing, kicking, criticising, hitting, pushing, etc.

Indirect bullying can involve spreading of rumours about the victim in the society and among the peers and totally overlooking the victims in the group activities.

Emotional Effects Of Obesity In Children


How Parents Can Handle Bullying

After knowing why obese kids are made fun of in school, parents can help their kids in many ways. Help your kid to remain cool, make him learn to protect himself and to be confident and brave.

Explore the internet that will help you with vast information on how to help your kid confront bullying and stand tall.

Meet with the principal of your kid’s school and tell him/her about the circumstances and ask him/her to help deal with this situation.

Whenever your kid reports you any incident of bullying, note it down in your diary, which will help you to keep track of those incidents and you can discuss them when you meet his teachers and other parents.

Enroll your kid in some encouraging activity such as martial arts or karate classes to help him build on his confidence level and also learn how to protect himself from the bullies.

Thus, it is very important to know about why obese kids are made fun of at school and how to handle it.

Parents should deal with bullying in their neighbourhood, in schools and in communities to make their kids feel safe, secure and confident.

Story first published: Saturday, February 6, 2016, 16:10 [IST]
Read more about: kids obesity school