Thursday, February 28, 2013

Bullying is Just Not a Good Thing


The Weight-o-Sphere has its share of bullies. They're scary people. Really.

Read this article: Effects of Bullying Last into Adulthood, in the New York Times, and watch this:




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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousFebruary 28, 2013 at 9:09 AM

    I choose not to watch the clip but can imagine its potentially tragic message. (I am very sensitive to images and reproductions of oppression and trauma, such as bullying, and have learned to spare myself from unnecessary pain when I can.) I wasn't fat when growing up, yet my brother was fat and suffered terribly from bullying and other forms abuse linked to fat stigma.

    When he was a senior in high school, he finally shot up (I mean he GREW!) over 6 inches, became popular, and discovered how strange and unexpected life felt like when bullying and abuse was "over." He grew another 3 or 4 inches during his first year of college, and actually became quite slim (nickname: "beanpole"), a natural maturation process for him that he had never anticipated would happen. Although he never became fat again as an adult, the legacy of bullying and oppression lived on for him as a man with a very shaky sense of self worth and a lot of leftover rage for all that he had endured and suffered. His feelings of self hate and his false beliefs about his "repulsive" physical appearance and his internal "ugliness" and "abnormal" self image have been a profoundly difficult legacy for him to overcome. I believe he still suffers and struggles as a result of long term, chronic bullying and oppression---more evidence of the powerful and destructive impacts of fat stigma.

    He deserved so much more from his childhood. :(

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  2. UnknownMarch 25, 2013 at 1:33 PM

    I really hate bullying. But I also hate it when we focus so much of our energy on our failures and how people see us...

    I've written a few things about it also, I hope you can check out my blog, too. Thank you!

    http://pseudonymousblabber.blogspot.com/

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