Welcome to Writers Talkback. If you are a new user, your account will have to be approved manually to prevent spam. Please bear with us in the meantime

Were you teased at school because you were overweight?

edited October 2011 in - Writing Tales
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

  • Try being overweight and having to wear glasses, it was a nightmare. Will share with you later as just heading out.
  • imo kids aren't teased at school for being overweight - they're teased because they're kids in school. If they aren't overweight they'll be teased for being thin, short, tall, having rich parents, having poor parents, being clever, being stupid, wearing glasses, being religous, having ginger hair. You get the idea.
  • I agree with PM - kids will always tease other kids. But if a kid's overweight I suppose you could argue they make a bigger target (sorry). I can't remember if I was teased or not (I was the skinny, lanky kid who grew up not out so my trousers were always too short). If I was teased I got over it, if I wasn't then it was a miracle. I was also painfully shy and blushed very easily - that would draw attention but I wouldn't call it teasing.
  • Like the others have said anything that makes you different got you teased or bullied.
    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.
  • Not sure what this means, but when I drive past groups of school girls at bus stops, I consider them to be pretty shapeless. That's possibly due to the change in uniforms. I can't remember the last time I saw a girl wearing a skirt.

    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.
  • A lot of schools have either moved to trousers rather than skirts or some give an option skirts or trousers.

    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.
  • When I was at school (n the 60s/70s) it was very unusual to be overweight. I wasn't very overweight but I always tended to be plump and had a rather sticking out tummy. I got teased and called 'Preggie' when I was about 13 by some older girls. I found it very embarrassing. Though nothing compared to the bullying I got for being 'posh' when younger (because I'd been to a private infants' school and had a different accent because of moving form Cornwall to Yorkshire).
  • I find that having a normal body, not having a six pack but not being overweight is considered fat by some students.
  • edited October 2011
    Yes I agree with PM and BB, if there is something that makes people notice you, you'll be picked on.

    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.
  • I was bullied not for being fat but cos my front teeth stuck out as I sucked my thumb for ages, they called me goofy. A brace corrected that later.
    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.
  • Thank you eveyone for your comments on this subject.
    It has definitely helped me on a project!
  • Our three children went to a country school and all the kids were like one big family. No bullying and everyone helped everyone else.
    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.
  • LizLiz
    edited October 2011
    Totally agree with pongo.

    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.
  • I wasnt overweight as such but have big legs and often got teased for that but usually it was because i suffered badly with acne so got called pizza face and the like. I was also quite shy so found it really difficult. I went on a school trip once with my supposed friend and she was quite happy to sit back and let some of the younger girls try and shave my eyebrows and other horrid stuff - how nice!

    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!
  • I disagree with you Liz that bullied people tend to go on and be bullies themselves.

    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.
  • Phot's Moll hit the nail on the head when she said that it's not just the overweight students that are bullied. I was a scrawny, gangly child (okay, so I've sadly since made up for that) but at secondary school I was picked on for being white. Well...you must remember that I live in Australia where everyone is expected to have glowing sun-kissed tans and when one does not.......*sigh*

    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.
  • Bullying will always happen. Growing up in the 70's I was called carrot top and ginger nut and a whole host of other names, but it never bothered me because I never let it. Plus I was twice the size of the other scrawny kids, and they soon cottoned on what would happen if they tried being clever. I was lucky that I was never actually bullied, but I was always fighting the corner of kids who were bullied at school. I've seen kids beaten to a pulp because of their weight, hair colour (ginger), being effeminate, being the wrong colour, and once, a young boy was badly beaten by a girl because he wore hearing aids.

    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.
  • [quote=Book Buddy]I disagree with you Liz that bullied people tend to go on and be bullies themselves.[/quote]

    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 found a good defence against bullying critiscism is to agree with the bully.
    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.
  • I'm teased and what not for just about everything I do nowadays. Works wonders on my negativity and self esteem.
  • [quote= Pixie J. King]Works wonders on my negativity and self esteem. [/quote]
    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 was teased because I was small for my age. Having a birthday in September, I was older than most of the class but the smallest. I was skinny!
  • I was picked on for having a hard plastic brown briefcase.
  • I was teased for being thin! I was on a couple occasions accused of being anorexic. I became a healthier weight after I was diagnosed with diabetes.

    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)
Sign In or Register to comment.