Many children reported being teased by even their own parents...

A study done by Rebecca Puhl from the Yale Rudd Centre for Food Policy and Obesity in the United States of America shows that children who have weight problems start to be teased and ostracised by their contemporaries at an age of 3. The study compares the quality of life that an obese person has with the quality of life that a person with cancer has.

The report talks about the massive increase in teasing, bullying and social ostracising that occurs with children with weight problems. The report also notes obese children who are made to feel different because of their weight are between two and three times more probable to register suicidal ideas. The research that appeared in the clinical journal called Psychological Bulletin talks about the unending and cruel torment that obese people have to go through and was not new research but an analysis of all other previous research done on the problem that obese children have with weight over the last four decades.

The report authors said that more needs to be done to protect overweight and obese children from bullying and a poor quality of life and even noted that the media very often adds to the problem. They also said that unlike many other different types of prejudice and bias being rude and unpleasant about obese people is still socially acceptable and is not considered to be taboo.

Apparently even very young children of the age of three are much more likely to think that overweight contemporaries are stupid, lazy, ugly and mean and even more worrying is that so many children reported being teased by even their own parents. Sometimes it is true that people tease other people about being overweight and are not aware exactly how sensitive and they are about their weight problem and thus they unintentionally cause offence. You should always be extremely careful when you talk to overweight and obese people about their weight problems.