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Features
Dec/Jan 2013 Issue
Table of Contents
Food Allergy Bullying
Risks of Bullying
About 35 percent of children over age 5 with food allergies have been bullied, teased or harassed, according to a 2010 study published in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, the first study to assess food allergy bullying.
Compare that percentage to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development’s 2001 study that found that 17 percent of kids in grades 6 through 10 were bullied. In the 2010 study, the rate of food-allergy bullying was an astonishing 50 percent for that same age group, says study co-author Scott H. Sicherer, MD, professor of pediatrics and a researcher at the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute at Mount Sinai in New York. Sicherer is author of Understanding and Managing Your Child’s Food Allergies (Johns Hopkins Press).
Most of the bullying in the 2010 study was verbal but kids also reported physical acts, such as having the allergen thrown or waved at them or having their food intentionally contaminated with the allergen. The bullying took place mainly at school and by classmates. But 21 percent of the time, teachers or school staff were perpetrators. For example, Sicherer says, a child might be singled out when the teacher says, “We’re going to have a birthday party today but we’re not going to have any cake because Johnny has food allergies.”
Sicherer was inspired to conduct the study after seeing many of his patients express sadness about being teased and harassed because of their food allergies. Children who are different from their peers are often targeted. A food allergy can be a stigmatizing factor that marks a child as different and exposes him or her to bullying.
“Not being able to do exactly the same things as the other children when it comes to mealtime makes the child with food allergies different. They are also at a disadvantage because they can’t do something the other children can do, so there’s an imbalance of power,” Sicherer says. “These are all set-ups for bullying.”
Comments (4)
I feel for this kid. I am allergic to tree nuts and peanuts, and faced similar (although less serious) teasing when I was in grade school. The father of one of my friends commented `She's the one who could die if she ate a peanut butter sandwich'. (Yes, this is true. Fortunately I had enough sense never to attempt to eat a peanut butter sandwich!) Things are much better now than forty years ago when I was in school -- now schools appear to have a nut-free policy.
Posted by: clare | December 7, 2012 6:51 PM Report this comment
I feel this lady's pain. My now 14 year old daughter was diagnosed as a Type 1 diabetic when she was 10 and just starting fifth grade. She went from a straight A student to a shivering wreck of a child who technically failed fifth grade because of the bullying she received all year from her TEACHERS! I went to the school administration twice, had nuclear meltdowns in the hallways more times than I can count and finally consulted two lawyers and wrote a letter to the school superintendent outlining the federal court case her school district was facing. The school principal and I finally sat down and worked out how sixth grade was going to go, but my daughter still struggles with the results of adults not caring for her welfare and safety and she is in high school now. She was also diagnosed as celiac sprue when she was twelve so she has a double whammy to deal with. I have to be very direct and uncompromising with every school administration every year about my daughter's medical care plan and her 504 plan. I will never forgive the two women who abused my daughter's trust and health and I don't allow any school official any leeway at this point. It's an awful feeling to have to literally fight for everything that my daughter has a right to because of the ignorance and incompetence in our schools.
Posted by: JDTilton | November 20, 2012 8:35 PM Report this comment
You can't count on Public Schools to take care of your child or his special needs. I would have pulled him out of that school so fast their heads would spin. Private school or home school are your only hope to keep him safe.
Posted by: Unknown | November 20, 2012 1:17 PM Report this comment
I can't begin to tell you how upset and then angry I got reading about what happened to this child in school. It is beyond infuriating to hear and see examples of how supposed carefully planned and good intentioned school districts either look the other way or assume its not as bad as it actually is when we as parents--and health professionals--know otherwise. I am very happy to hear that your son is doing well in his new school.
Posted by: ROBERTA T | November 20, 2012 1:04 PM Report this comment