Overweight children may face regection at school
Published: 07 May 2010
Overweight children as young as five are struggling with rejection, loneliness and low self confidence as a result of being shunned by their classmates, a study has revealed.
The study was conducted in a group of more than 400 primary school children who were asked to nominate three children in their class who they would most like to invite to a party and three children who they would least like to invite. It was found that a child’s popularity was directly proportionate to their body mass index (BMI). Those who were least likely to be invited were predominantly overweight or obese. Surprisingly, the trend was particularly strong amongst boys. Psychologist, Ekaterina Kornilaki believes that this was the case because boys thought that their overweight classmates would be poor at active games.
She also explained that the study could cast light on the rise of eating disorders in young children as they clearly viewed being overweight as “a disastrous outcome”.
