Fat kids are treated differently, even by their parents, study says

Youngsters who report teasing, rejection, bullying and other types of abuse because of their weight are two to three times more likely to report suicidal thoughts as well as to suffer from other health issues such as high blood pressure and eating disorders, researchers said.

‘The stigmatization directed at obese children by their peers, parents, educators and others is pervasive and often unrelenting,’ researchers with Yale University and the University of Hawaii at Manatoa wrote in the July issue of Psychological Bulletin.

The paper was based on a review of all research on youth weight bias over the past 40 years, said lead author Rebecca M. Puhl of Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity.

It comes amid a growing worldwide epidemic of child obesity. By 2010, almost 50 percent of children in North America and 38 percent of children in the European Union will be overweight, the researchers said.

Even with a growing percentage of overweight people, the stigma shows no signs of subsiding, according to Puhl. The stigmatization has been documented for decades. When children were asked to rank photos of children as friends in a 1961 study, the overweight child was ranked last.

Children as young as 3 are more likely to consider overweight peers to be mean, stupid, ugly and sloppy.

A growing body of research shows that parents and educators are also biased against heavy children. In a 1999 study of 115 middle and high school teachers, 20 percent said they believed obese people are untidy, less likely to succeed and more emotional.

‘Perhaps the most surprising source of weight stigma toward youths is parents,’ the report says.

Several studies showed that overweight girls got less college financial support from their parents than average weight girls. Other studies showed teasing by parents was common.

Lynn McAfee, 58, of Stowe, Pa., said that as an overweight child she faced troubles on all fronts.

‘It was constantly impressed upon me that I wasn’t going to get anywhere in the world if I was fat,’ McAfee said. ‘You hear it so often, it becomes the truth.’

Her mother, who also was overweight, offered to buy her a mink coat when she was 8 to try to get her to lose weight even though her family was poor. Other children would try to run her down on bikes to see if she would bounce.