Via Yahoo! News: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070712/...dYamHH_PGISbYF

Horrible! I have always thought that parents and the public school system do not do enough to prevent or punish bullying; this simply is a reflection of our society's 'blame the victim' mentality when it comes to bullying and harassment. The worst part of this whole sorry tale is that the adults are joining in!

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The dose makes the poison--Paracelsus (1493-1541) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracelsus

I don't know. That's why I'm asking--Noclevername

Intelligence may not be clearly defined, but you know stupid when you see it--Noclevername

Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge--Carl Sagan (1934-1996)

Yep. I liked it better in the olden days when there weren't no bullies.

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In my day [circa 1960's] all the bullies were fat kids picking on [me] skinny kids... what goes around comes around, I suppose.

Nick

I thought the big problem is "no-fault" handling of disagreements.
When the 180-pound kid takes something away from the 100-pound
kid and the 100-pound kid complains, they both get the same
dressing-down from The Man.

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

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http://www.FreeMars.org/jeff/

"I find astronomy very interesting, but I wouldn't if I thought we
were just going to sit here and look." -- "Van Rijn"

"The other planets? Well, they just happen to be there, but the
point of rockets is to explore them!" -- Kai Yeves

What! This is new?! Or even news?

Let me tell you the sad story of Dave G. In Junior High school 7th grade he weighed 360 pounds. (I was there at the football weigh in) He was physically round. But he was a trooper. He was known as "Tuba" his entire school life. Every Friday we had a graded mile run. Now mind he took longer than everybody else but he finished everytime. Unlike a lot of kids who were a lot less than half his wieght.

One day almost the entire class recoiled when Dave came in about 4 minutes before the end of the period and asked the coach what his time was and the coach said, "I don't know, I don't have a calender". Which was unfair because he was also the coach of the football team and Dave was his star center. No other 7th grader could get past him. (The coachs had a policy of stopping the timing after 20 minutes. Dave almost always got an exception)

We just lost him last year at the age of 46.

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Gimme a minute to read through Jay's latest observations...

I agree that this is not something new, BigDon, but it has gone under the radar. This study spells it out explicitly, which makes it harder to ignore or sweep under the rug.

I'm sorry to hear of your loss.

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The dose makes the poison--Paracelsus (1493-1541) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracelsus

I don't know. That's why I'm asking--Noclevername

Intelligence may not be clearly defined, but you know stupid when you see it--Noclevername

Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge--Carl Sagan (1934-1996)

Back when I was in ninth grade my gym teacher didn't like me because of my weight and I had to get out of the class because I throught that it was unfair of for her to pick on me. I had to write a paper and go to the fitness center and walk around the track to get credit and to pass the class.

I subscribe to the Calvin and Hobbes philosophy: being miserable builds character.

Anyway, I don't put much stock in that article. Kids get picked on for all reasons... too fat, too thin, too tall, too short, too dumb, too smart.... You need to compare those to see if the weight thing really is significant, or if it's just a fancy way of saying "sometimes, people pick on other people."

What about those who report teasing/bullying for other reasons? Two to three times more likely as what? And do the blood pressure and eating disorders have any relationship to the social bias, or are they effects or causes of being overweight?

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"It's turtles all the way down."

Bullies are bullies. They'll always find a weakness.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

In my experience, being miserable only builds character if you find strength/resources to overcome whatever makes you miserable. If you don't, then being miserable only grinds you down.

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Fiction has to be plausible. Reality is under no such constraint.

Personally I find things have improved a lot with regards to bullying. When I was a kid if you got beat up by other kids and complained about it to an adult they'd beat you for losing. As long as there wasn't hospitalization or much blood involved, children could pretty much beat up other children if they wanted. But last year there was a child hitting another child at the beach and people called the police and the police actually came and dealt with the problem seriously instead of just laughing at the callers. It was really weird. And good.

In my day, the dinosaurs ate the fat kids.

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Fields of Space

LOGIC, n.
The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.

In the Year 2525.

"One small step for (a) man. One giant leap for mankind".

If an astronaut doesn't need good grammar, niether does you.

Host of Seraphim

ROFLMAO!!

You made me spit out my coffee from laughing so hard!

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The dose makes the poison--Paracelsus (1493-1541) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracelsus

I don't know. That's why I'm asking--Noclevername

Intelligence may not be clearly defined, but you know stupid when you see it--Noclevername

Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge--Carl Sagan (1934-1996)

I'd forgotten about that. I think that stopped when I was in
kindergarten or first grade. Then it took a year or two for the
fat kids to grow back to the point where they became more
of a nuisance than the dinosaurs.

-- Jeff, in absentia

How were they a nuisance?

Or were you making a joke?

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The dose makes the poison--Paracelsus (1493-1541) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracelsus

I don't know. That's why I'm asking--Noclevername

Intelligence may not be clearly defined, but you know stupid when you see it--Noclevername

Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge--Carl Sagan (1934-1996)

For some reason, I thought that when I opened this thread I was going to read a bunch of reasons for why bullying fat kids is good for them because it'll make them lose weight (through stress, or trying to run away ... whatever). I'm very disappointed.

When I was at school (maybe 7 or 8) I made a joke about another kid being fat ... I made the joke .. and then he sat on me and wouldn't let me up. I think that was fair.

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Under who's radar?

Been going on at least since I was in junior high (40 years ago) and a person would have to be living in a social and cultural vacumm to not be aware of it.

Obese people just happen to often be a target; one of many. Mean kids are mean, if it weren't the obese kid it would be the littlest kids, or the chess club nerds, or those outcast for any number of reasons.

My primary sympathy goes out to their unhealthy condition. The chances of "losing" them early is so greatly increased that it is unconscionable that parents let the obesity happen to begin with.

I'd agree that it gets swept under the rug though. The administrators and teachers too often turn a blind eye.

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

I think I hear what you're saying, and wonder when being the "victem" of a prevantable and correctable condition become acceptable. The victem role is defeatist before events happen, as clearly explained in the Karpman Emotional Triangle, particularly the part about how "The Drama Triangle is centered on the role of the Victim, which Karpman depicted by placing that role as the bottom point of the triangle."

When someone lifts your wallet, you're a victem. When they get away with a thousand bucks because you foolishly carried that much in this era of credit cards and cashier's checks, that's not being a victem. That's simply foolishness. So is overeating, underexercising, and parental negligence which allows both in one's offspring.

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I am Mugs, of the Alien clan of Usa, Nordamerica, a Terran, of Sol. A human.

Whoever says "perception is reality" is daft. It's merely an abstraction, and often not a very good one.

I'm afraid our bodies just aren't made to live in developed nations world of plenty. Genes that would normally help us survive become a hazard in a world that contains double fudge sundays. Personally I'd like to see most junk foods come with a large lable that reads:

WARNING - This food contains little or no nutritional value. Eating more than a small portion of this food is hazardous to your health.

Then if the company improves the quality of the food to meet some minimal standards it could change the lable to:

This food is of low nutritional value. Consuption should be limited in the interests of maintaining health.

This should both educate people about what they are eating and encourage companies to improve the quality of the food they sell.