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Were you teased at school because you were overweight?
I was overweight when I was at high school so of course got teased.
I am writing a story on an overweight student and would love to know what happened in your school life if the same thing happened to you. It will be a great help of research for me.
Thanks
Alana
Comments
Nowdays girls are more aware of size (images in the media and airbrushing) so being overweight may be more of an issue and you'd perhaps need a younger sample to reflect now.
But is that a deliberate choice by girls to be shapeless at school? When you see them out of school they don't leave much to the imagination.
If you are big around the hips and a school insists you wear trousers, they should be done under the human rights act as that is guaranteed to get girls bullied about their size.
I really dislike schools for this reason.
Yet when you think back to how people treated each other in days gone by eg christians thrown to the lions, how brutally some servants were treated by their bosses, how children were sent up chimneys and made to work on machinery in factories, some children which group in school are simply today's savages.
If they don't have the support at home from parents or from teachers at school to deal with it, it can be a pretty dire place to spend most of your time.
My daughter was bullied as she was thin she hated being thin ate loads, but could never put on weight. She puts on weight now though much to her annoyance!
All the girls coming home from the secondary school near here wear skirts, nice green plaid ones like kilts with green or black tights.
It has definitely helped me on a project!
I'm sure teachers could do more to set the moral tone of a classroom, a more we'are'all'in'this'togetherness. Create more respect for others, whatever their problems.
Bullying is a defence mechanism and should be treated from the inside out. However, whatever, it shouldn't be allowed to happen.
Bullied people tend to go on and be bullies themselves, as being bullied affects self confidence and putting someone else down can make you feel bigger.
But also, bullying is about not seeing others as 'people' as much as anything else. In our village school, most of the kids knew each other AND their teachers out of school - most of them had been to the same toddler and nurseries, been to the village fairs and celebrations etc.
This makes a HUGE difference. You know the other children as themselves, and what's more, they are part of a village 'family'. In the playground classes did not just play within their own classes, the older kids were quite happy to include other ages in all the games, the older ones looked after and comforted the littlies, the littlies had no fears about approaching bigger children they knew for help, fun, speech - anything.
It's easy to be mean or not to 'notice' someone in trouble if you don't know them personally, and imo that is what is mostly wrong about society now - loss of accountability through social anonymity. Even down to mums noticing another child who has a lack of parenting and 'adding' stuff to that child's pot of experience and love.
And when they go to 'big school' that feeling of family continues. My friend a very long time ago told me about this, as she taught at the comprehensive most of our village children attend. She has no fears for her child going up there, despite being in a primary school of (at that time) only 90 pupils. The kids always protect their own, even if they were in completely different friendship groups, were years apart - if they saw any problems with kids from their primary they still protected them.
Small is beautiful.
Kids these days are however much more aware of their appearance - but ithink the parents are too. My friends girl is 10 and she pretty much has her on a diet because she thinks she is getting too fat - she's not, she's just tall and has the usual bit of puppy fat - but things like that are not going to help with getting across to kids that one size doesnt fit all!
Like Katyanne, I was bullied at school because my front teeth stuck out, and I have many painful memories of it. But I wouldn't go and bully anyone to make me feel better about myself. Quite the opposite.
In my experience, and seeing others bullied at school including my sons, it is often those that achieve something that are bullied. The achievement can be to do with school work, or something outside school that is recognised in school. Those doing the bullying don't like the fact that others get recognition for that achievement, and are often jealous of the attenion given to the achievers. Rather than try to make something of themselves, they take an easier route of bullying the achievers instead, trying to belittle what they have done and feel bad. Thus making the bullies feel 'bigger' than the achievers.
I also feel that many of the programmes on TV 'encourage' bullying with the way that people on the shows talk to each, and pull others down. Even our politicians who want the youth to be so much better hardly lead by example with the way that they ridicle each other rather than generally debate a subject. If our children and youth see this all the time, they will follow suit.
My daughter has lovely olive skin that doesn't need too much summer sun before it positively glows, and yet, she too, was teased at school. They don't need a reason - they will find any excuse, I'm sad to say.
And yes, school policies CAN make a difference. Those with the power to combat bullying should make it a priority to do so. Bullying should definitely be a subject that is discussed in schools from a very early age.
I like the idea of small is better, Liz. I believe that bringing things down to a very "personal" basis is good for everyone on so many levels.
One overweight girl was bullied in a rather diffrent way. Boys would pretend to fancy her, pay attention and she - having little self asteem - found this amazing, that she could have males fussing over her like her scrawny friends, but they were only after one thing, and once they'd got it, they were spreading the gossip all around school, all the intimate details, but with the added element of referring to her weight at every opportunity. The girl had a breakdown because of these morons, and left for another school in the end.
I had no time for bullies then, and I don't now.
I'm not saying they all do, clearly not, as I haven't myself. But statistics do show that children who bully have often been bullied themselves - not necessarily by children, by adults, their parents etc.
I have always had skinny legs and the New Zealand way is to wear shorts a lot so have been on the receiving of a variety of comments.
I just agree and say yeh, but aren't they great. They get me around and I feel sorry for folk that don't have any or even lose one. I'm quite proud of my legs actually for the work they do.
However, I do realise that children are often not up to such replies.
The fact to consider is; you must be pretty special to be chosen for such attention.
When in the line of torment, it seems impossible to believe worth of one's individuality.
However; comments already posted on this thread prove any character with any attribute is a potential target for unwanted, abusive, attention.
It might be suggested that "bully" is an incorrect description because of the diversity applied and directed with all manner of criticism.
Remember; children are born with a host of skills that are lost as they develop an "educated" existence.
Degree of rebelion toward this conformity varies in each individual but the skill of sensing percieved "weakness" in others can become very distorted.
So many scenarios witnessed through my own eyes, inwards and out, have revealed disfunction is possible from just about every person born.
Some would be horrified to learn their behaviour could be interpreted as a form of "bullying", others will treat such accusation with disdain.
Reality is that behaviour patterns vary throughouit all diverse groups of life in the world. "Civilised" behaviour differs according to culture as much as educated conformity.
Somehow; everyone finds a means of enjoying balance in their existence, eventually.
The "trick" is to never believe YOU are anything but "special" and "perfect".
I mainly got teased for being little, brainy and because my two front teeth crossed overlapped each other (they are straight now - surprisingly I didn't get teased when I had braces)