Even Overweight Kindergarten Children Discriminated Against

It’s a cruel world where children are discriminated and ostracised

Evidence that stigmatisation and discrimination due to obesity starts at a very young age has been produced by a group of researchers from the MU College of Human Environmental Sciences. By making use of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort they documented the social development of around 8,000 school children from kindergarten upwards. They took note of when the children became overweight and for how long they remained overweight as well as documenting anxiety, depression and loneliness in the same children.

Professor Sara Gable from the MU College of Human Environmental Sciences explained that even at a very young kindergarten age children are considered to be responsible for their weight problem and this reflects badly on them as individuals. They noted this discrimination and stigmatisation was especially significant in girls and produced negative reactions from them as a consequence. Teachers for example said that the overweight girls had more negative social relationships and had less self discipline and more ‘acting out’ than the girls who were not overweight.

It’s a cruel world where children are discriminated and ostracised for something they have very little control over. Unfortunately it is not just their peers but even adults who subconsciously discriminate negatively against overweight children when really their weight is not their fault.

At Ukmedix News we have come across research which shows that medical professionals such as doctors and nurses also discriminate against overweight and obese patients and provide a poorer standard of health care to them.

The negative perception that obesity produces from individuals undermines the confidence of obese people and often prevents them from realising their full potential. Obesity also causes a lot of discrimination in the workplace with jobs going to less qualified thinner individuals.

You may well be sitting there thinking that you would never discriminate against an obese person and you may be shocked by this article, however unfortunately obesity discrimination runs very deep in the subconscious and you may unknowingly be crediting thinner people in general with increased intelligence and motivation and not giving the benefit of the doubt to anyone who is overweight.