Trigger Warning: The subject of weight has become increasingly sensitive in recent years, and even physicians are advised not to address excessive weight of patients. Avoidance of reality is not a helpful practice in scientific psychological theory and practice. It is a fact that obesity is a growing phenomenon that affects both physical health and self-image, and that fat shaming has been the most common form of body shaming for many decades. It is impossible to help those suffering from these weight-related problems if they cannot be mentioned. If you feel that reading about obesity and fat-shaming will cause you emotional distress, you should bypass this article.

Do you have an overweight child who’s being bullied? Have you followed the universally offered advice to inform the school, only to find that the problem has continued and even escalated? If so, you are not alone. You may have come to believe the problem is intractable, but the solution may be simpler than you’ve imagined.

The problem of fat-shaming

Body shaming is certainly one of the most common forms of bullying. The incessant promotion of the ideal of thinness and the simultaneous growing epidemic of obesity have combined to make weight the most common target of body shaming.

Why is bullying, including fat shaming, continuing to be called an epidemic despite more than two decades of anti-bullying efforts by society? It’s because these efforts are predominantly directed to encouraging kids to stop bullying others. But if your child needs to wait for others to change, they may continue suffering indefinitely. Fortunately, the person best positioned to get your child to stop being bullied is none other than your child.

First, to help your child, it is important to have realistic expectations.

1. We can’t prevent others from noticing our differences and imperfections. Don’t you notice when others are different from the norm, or have obvious imperfections? Of course, you do. So, if your child is overweight, stop expecting others not to notice. It’s going to happen whether we like it or not.
2. It is impossible to prevent any given individual from insulting your child once. We all get picked on once in a while. Bullying, though, refers to being victimised repeatedly over time by the same individuals. As you have discovered, it can be devastating for a child to be ridiculed by schoolmates day after day. It is precisely this destructive, repetitive victimisation that your child needs to–and can–prevent.
3. As much as we hate being shamed, it has a positive biological purpose. Shaming is a universal behaviour that goes on in every society in the world. It’s nature’s way of getting us to improve. If we don’t know what’s wrong with us, we can’t fix it. Because our eyes face outwards, we are far less likely to notice our own imperfections than those of others.
   Furthermore, until the not-too-distant past, there were no mirrors, cameras and sound recorders, so we had only a vague idea of what we looked and sounded like. Thus, we needed others to let us know what’s wrong with us. After all, isn’t that what’s behind the worldwide campaign against bullies — shaming them so that they’ll change? And that’s precisely what kids are doing when they ridicule your child for being fat. Even if they are not consciously intending to, they are engaging in hard-wired socio-biological behaviour intended to push your child to become healthier and better-looking.
   In fact, if your child is overweight, there is a good chance even you have been encouraging them to slim down. Peer pressure is often more effective than all the lectures from Mom and Dad. The news is replete with stories of people who got into shape in response to fat shaming. A prime example is Superman actor Henry Cavill, who was called Fat Cavill in school. So, instead of being mad about it, accept and appreciate it.

Two separate issues

If your child is being fat-shamed, there are two separate issues. One is how your child feels about being overweight. It could be that your child is upset about it and would like to be trim. The second issue is that your child is being fat-shamed. These two issues often go together, but they don’t always.

Kids who are bullied about their weight believe they are bullied because they are overweight. But this is not accurate. The real reason is because they get upset when they’re bullied for being overweight. If they wouldn’t get upset, it would be no fun to pick on them, and the kids would leave them alone.

On the other hand, a child can be as thin as a rail, yet if kids call them fat and they respond by getting upset, the kids will continue calling them fat.

There are kids who feel bad about being overweight and wish they were thinner, but they don’t get bullied because they don’t get upset when picked on. Popularity has little to do with our weight. What counts is whether we’re enjoyable to be with. In fact, some incredibly popular people are obese. A great example is the comedian Gabriel Iglesias.

If your child is upset because of obesity, that is a legitimate concern. See if they want your help in finding a solution. And it’s never going to be an overnight process.

But whether or not they want to reduce their weight, their most urgent need is to stop being fat-shamed. All it takes is seconds.

The solution

The most effective way to deal with bullying is by employing the Golden Rule, which instructs us to be nice to people even when they are mean to us, or, in other words, to treat them like friends even when they treat us like enemies. It’s not a recipe for losing, but for winning, and it creates a win/win situation.