Ways In Which Overweight Kids Can Avoid Getting Bullied

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Overweight kids are often the main target of bullies, but only a few of them are able to ignore the unpleasant comments they receive from their peers. In fact bullying is a leading cause of loneliness, depression and other behavioral problems in overweight children, that often prevent them from staying with their peers, socialize with them and participating to group activities.

Bullying affects the children's emotional and psychological health, as well as their physical health. As a matter of facts, not only it prevents them from losing weight, but sometimes it also makes them gain even more weight. Loneliness and depression are often responsible for emotional eating: children who feel depressed, lonely or discriminated often stifle or avoid their negative emotions by overeating, thereby worsening their problem. In addition they often avoid situations where they could be ridiculed, such as sports and various group activities, and this makes more difficult for them to lose weight.

It is therefore important that bullying is prevented. If overweight or obese children are not able to ignore stupid or crude comments by themselves and bullying becomes a threat for their physical and mental health, parents, teachers and doctors must intervene. It is important that parents become aware that childhood is a fragile moment and that problems that develop in childhood, if not solved, can have negative consequences in adulthood.

While the main task of teachers should be to take measures to prevent bullying at school, parents should help their kids at home. Not only they should help them lose weight through a proper diet, but first and foremost they should encourage their kids to stay with their friends and participate in sports and group activities.

It is important that bullied children develop confidence in themselves. So, if your child is overweight or obese, try to explain him that his body condition is not a condition of inferiority compared to others and that he has many other qualities that make him attractive, such as intelligence, kindness, courage and strong will. In addition it is also important that you always remember to your child that bullies are insecure and weak persons: they make themselves feel better by making others feel insecure. Possessing this awareness can make your child more self confident.

Bullying is a complex social problem and surely an article is not enough to solve it. However, if you have an obese child who is target of bullies, you have the right to protect him. Not only you have to create a safe home setting that makes him feel accepted and loved, but you have to get him to feel the same outside home. So talk to the teacher about your kid's problems and ask him or her to deal with the situation, because sometimes the teacher's intervention may be more effective and incisive than that of parents. School should institute a policy of zero-tolerance for bullying and provide all teachers with training on how to recognize bullying and take measures against it. This is not an easy task for school staff, but it is a necessary step to prevent and stop bullying.