Obese kids more likely to be bullied

CHICAGO — Overweight adolescents are more likely than normal-weight children to be victims and perpetrators of bullying, a study found, bolstering evidence that being fat endangers emotional as well as physical health.

The results in a study of 5,749 Canadian youngsters echo data from British research and follow a U.S. study published last year in which obese children rated their quality of life as low as young cancer patients’ because of teasing and weight-related health problems.

While not surprising given the stigma of being overweight, the new findings underscore the importance of enlisting teachers and schools in the fight to prevent and treat obesity in children, said lead author Ian Janssen, an obesity researcher at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario.

"Anybody’s who’s ever been on a playground would know" that overweight children are among those who get picked on, Janssen said, adding that in some cases, that may lead the youngsters to become bullies themselves.

The study appears in the May edition of Pediatrics, released today.

Among normal-weight youngsters, almost 11 percent said they were victims of bullying, compared with 14 percent of overweight youngsters and nearly 19 percent of obese youngsters.

About 8 percent of normal-weight children said they were perpetrators, compared with 11 percent of overweight youngsters and 9 percent of the obese children.

Obese boys and girls were more than two times more likely than normal-weight youngsters to be victims of "relational" bullying — being intentionally left out of social activities. Obese girls were about twice as likely to be physically bullied on a weekly basis than normal-weight girls; among obese boys the risk was slightly lower but still substantially higher than for normal-weight boys.

Obese girls were more than five times more likely than normal-weight girls to physically bully other youngsters at least once weekly. Among boys the risk of being physically aggressive was only slightly increased, but they were more than twice as likely to make fun of others and spread lies and rumors than normal-weight boys.