Study Finds Children With Allergies Prone To Bullying In School
Food allergies… they are tough, and when it comes to children, it can be even tougher. And, it doesn’t get any easier in school. According to Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai researchers, nearly one-third of the food-allergy children are being bullied because of their food allergy.
Eight percent of kids around the nation suffer with allergies from eggs, milk, peanuts, shellfish and tree-nuts. Of those, 40 percent of them suffer with life-threatening reactions such as anaphylaxis. Those folks who have these allergies do suffer with them in silence.
The bullying causes these children and their parents high levels of stress. However, it also creates a danger for the child’s life should they have a severe allergy reaction to food they are taunted with.
Dr, Scott H. Sicherer, the study’s author and the hospital’s chief of pediatric allergy division, said the results should bring awareness to school personnel, physicians and, of course, parents to actively look for and deal with bullying. The study, which was published in the Dec. 24 issue of Pediatrics, suggested that targeted interventions could alleviate the stress and improve the children’s quality of life while they manage the food allergies.
Bullying – both at school and through the Internet (cyberbullying) – has gain notoriety in the last several years due to the rise in suicide and the serious emotional toll that teasing has on children.
Boston Children’s Hospital’s Chief of General Pediatrics Dr. Mark Schuster said more people are seeing the consequences bullying is having and it’s something that should not be joked about. He said parents of the kids bullying may be unwittingly contributing to the bullying by rolling their eyes or complaining they cannot send certain types of food to the schools because the classmate has a food allergy. Kids, he said, can pick up on the negative energy.
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I knew a kid in highschool with more allergies than i could count and he also go some of the highest quality pussy at our school. It up to the kid whether he is a loser or not.
There is only one thing that can stop bullying in school. We need to stop teaching victims that it’s *wrong* to defend themselves. I had a bully in school … right up to the moment when he took me down on the ground and started beating me. I fought back and knocked one of his teeth out. He ran off crying, saying he’d send his big brother over to take care of me. The big brother did come back with the bully. But as soon as he began menacing me, MY big brother came out of the house and beat him to a pulp. They both staggered off. And after that day, I was never bullied again.
are you f’n king kidding me – this has been a fact since the first kid with a running nose showed up to learn the ABCs … anyone who shows signs of sickness is seen as weak and is auto selected by the meanest to be prey.
Whether the kids have allergies or not, bullying has gone too far ! When I was young bullying existed, but I guess the way we handled it was very different. Yea, I was in a lot of fights, but that wasn’t the answer. Kids today seem to be very sensitive. See, that’s good to a degree, but others may take it as a weakness. Growing up in my day was,”be a man”! So… I suppose you shouldn’t display a “sensitive side”. Good luck to todays youth !!!