Study shows obese teens get bullied but also bully back
Posted Jan 24, 2012 03:41:35 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
KINGSTON, Ont. – An Ontario study suggests obese teens are not only more likely to be bullied, but they are also more likely to be the ones doing the bullying.
Researchers at Queen’s University in Kingston studied more than 17-hundred students at 16 Ontario high schools in 2006 and 2007.
The students were participants in the Health Behaviour and School-Age Children Survey. Their self-reported weight and height measurements were used to calculate body-mass index, or B-M-I.
The teens were asked questions about two forms of bullying — physical and relational, which refers to excluding, ignoring or spreading rumours or lies about a person.
Among females who weren’t bullied in 2006, nearly 15 per cent of obese females reported they perpetrated bullying in 2007, compared to two per cent of overweight females and nearly four per cent normal weight females.
The researchers found two-fold increases among obese males as both victims and perpetrators of bullying.
The study is in Obesity Facts, the European Journal of Obesity.
