Obesity and bullying often go hand in hand. So much so that two out of three minors who have problems with their weight admit that they have been made fun of by their classmates or other children at school. According to many national and international studies, much of the bullying comes through social networks or mobile messaging apps.
Health authorities in the Valencian Community have decided to try to tackle the issue and have kickstarted a pioneering project aimed at detecting cases of bullying early in students with obesity, with the aim of making action plans with the school and the family aimed at eradicating the bullying.
Pediatrician Ana Pilar Nso, is the obesity consultant responsible for the project. The first step “has been to acquire some tests that, based on certain scales, allow us to make more objective diagnoses, because so far we are guided by what the kids tell us in the consultation, but it is necessary to objectify it.”
Once it is detected that a minor, due to weight problems, is being mocked by companions, “Our idea is to alert schools to what is happening and make an intervention with the families so that the child gains motivation”, adds Nso explaining that the idea is to intervene as quickly as possible before the situation escalates.
Dr Nso points out that bullying and obesity make up a vicious circle without often knowing what the cause and what the consequence is. “Many children eat more because of the anxiety that their classmates mess with them and there are others who say they don’t want to play sports because they fear that their classmates will tease them when they see them in shorts or because they are slower”, which aggravates the situation.
A common trait that almost all of these children share is low self-esteem, says Nso, “they think they won’t be able to get out of this cycle.” The problem of bullying in these situations is more intense the older the child is and it is more frequent in boys than in girls, explained the pediatrician. “In some cases it affects 70% of patients, depending on their age and sex, but in general it can be said that more than half of adolescents with obesity suffer from this problem”
The increase in obesity in Spain’s children is a problem that worries the specialists a lot, since the figures do not stop increasing. Currently, 40% of children between 3 and 8 years old in Spain weigh more than they should for their age, according to recent data from the Nutritional Study of the Spanish Population (Enpe).
Dr Nso is convinced that the pandemic has aggravated these problems, not only because of the confinement and the anxiety derived from the uncertainty, “it is also because many sports activities have been cancelled, which has caused a greater sedentary lifestyle in children” . Six out of ten endocrinology consultations at Dr Nso’s health centre are for obesity.
Broken down by gender, the Enpe study shows that 39.2% of boys between 3 and 24 years old are overweight or obese compared to 28.4% of girls of the same age. The Enpe study also found that the prevalence of childhood obesity and youth in Spain is one of the highest in Europe, with Greece ranking first (18%), followed by Italy (15.2%) and Spain (14.2%) in third place.
A sedentary lifestyle and an inadequate diet are the direct cause of this public health problem. Obesity in childhood is associated with a greater probability of becoming obese as an adult and with a greater risk of suffering non-communicable diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and some types of cancer.