Professor Dieter Wolke and Dr Kirsty Lee, in the Department of Psychology, discovered that teenagers who are involved in bullying in any way — from bullies, to their victims, to those who both bully and get bullied — are more likely to develop concerns about their eating and exercise behaviours, and become preoccupied with losing weight.<\/p>\n Almost 2800 adolescents in UK secondary schools were screened for involvement in bullying, through self and peer assessment.<\/p>\n A sample of those involved in bullying — around 800 teenagers — was analysed for eating and exercise thoughts and behaviours, self-esteem levels, body image and emotional wellbeing.<\/p>\n They were asked to complete established questionnaires — such as Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Scale, the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, the Body Esteem Scale for Adolescents and Adults, and the eating behaviours component of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Assessment.<\/p>\n Results from these tests showed that 42% of bullies have extreme preoccupation with weight-loss, as well as 55% of bullying victims, and 57% of teens who both bully and are bullied. This is compared with adolescents who have no involvement with bullying — 35% of those are obsessed with losing weight.<\/p>\n The researchers say that bullies are preoccupied with weight-loss because they are driven by the desire to be the most attractive, strongest and fittest<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Victims of bullying suffer from reduced psychological functioning due to being picked on — causing weight-loss obsession, chronically low self-esteem levels, and eating disorders<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Teenagers who are bullied, and also bully their peers — bully-victims — have the highest pre-occupation with weight-loss and are most likely to develop eating disorders, as well as other psychological problems.<\/p>\n Bully-victims are doubly affected, by both the desire to be attractive, strong and popular, and the psychological harm and lowered levels of self-esteem which come from peer victimisation.<\/p>\n From the results of this research, Professor Wolke argues that clinicians dealing with victims of peer bullying should directly target their emotional wellbeing, and issues with self-esteem and body image<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Professor Wolke comments:<\/p>\n “Bullies are bi-strategic — they want to be popular by being dominant though bullying but also want to look good.”<\/p>\n “In contrast those who are bullied, the victims, are occupied with weight because they have poor body and self-esteem and are emotionally stressed and hope that looking good might make them feel better.<\/p>\n “If we could reduce bullying, it would help to improve self-worth, body image, wellbeing and healthy ways of keeping fit<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n The research, ‘Does psychological functioning mediate the relationship between bullying involvement and weight loss preoccupation in adolescents? A two-stage cross-sectional study’, is published in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the University of Warwick press release: School bullies and their victims are more obsessed with weight-loss than anyone else, according to new research by the University of Warwick. Professor… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9,346],"tags":[282,45,223,73,124,167,39,109],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20302"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20302"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20364,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20302\/revisions\/20364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/girls_bullies.jpg\")
School bullies and their victims are more obsessed with weight-loss than anyone else<\/strong>, according to new research by the University of Warwick.<\/p>\n