Making fun of fat kids will make them fatter
Fat kids have a fifth fewer friends and are 70 percent more likely to be shunned than their slimmer classmates.
Experts say shaming kids who are tubby makes them more likely to put on weight.
And they said isolating podgy children puts them at increased risk of loneliness, depression and poor health. The study was published June 7 in PLOS One.
Researchers looked at 504 kids with an average age of 11.
They found chubby youngsters were more likely to be excluded from friendships and called their peers friends when the feeling was not mutual.
The research also discovered fatter kids disliked a fifth more classmates than thinner children.
Kayla de la Haye, the study’s lead author and a professor at the University of Southern California, said: “Our finding is alarming because if we continue to have social environments where fat shaming is the norm, these kids will continue to be ostracized.”
“Those interactions increase the risk of loneliness, depression, poor eating habits and illness.”