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Features
Dec/Jan 2013 Issue
Table of Contents
Food Allergy Bullying
Providing Comfort
Kenton Duty (left), star of Disney Channel’s “Shake It Up!”, with actors Tharon Trujillo (middle) and Nick Dean (right) at a recent “My Life My Power” anti-bullying campaign event in Los Angeles.
Photo by Jackson Wong, Copy Right: My Life My Power World Inc.Kids who are bullied need to feel support from their families, says Kenton Duty, who stars in the Disney Channel series, “Shake It Up!” and who has been active in anti-bullying campaigns.
“What they need is some comfort. They need someone they can talk to, who can at least tell them, ‘You’re doing a good job putting up with it and we’re going to stop this.’ Knowing someone cares about you is huge.”
But not all kids have supportive adults in their lives.
“There are a lot of problems with how bullying is dealt with in general. A lot of people are like, ‘Kids will be kids. It happens,’” Duty says. “Well, it doesn’t have to happen. Adults can monitor it and make it safe for these kids.”
Duty, 17, is allergic to chocolate and wheat. As a celebrity ambassador to FAAN, he’s talked to students at FAAN summits, giving advice on how to speak up about bullying, especially if you have food allergies.
Kids with food allergies can feel vulnerable because they have to carry or wear bulky allergy medications like epinephrine auto-injectors.
“If you carry your EpiPen on you, it’s this big, clunky thing and everybody knows you have food allergies. A lot of kids don’t want to carry it, so they’ll throw it in their locker or they just won’t take it to school because they don’t want people seeing that visual reminder of their food allergies. But if it’s in their locker or they don’t bring it because they don’t want to get bullied or teased about it—if they’re in anaphylactic shock, it’s big trouble.”
Duty is tall now but for many years, he was one of the shortest kids in his class and he’d get bullied because of it.
“What helped me was I had family and friends who backed me up. My friends always stood by me,” he says.
He’s also been teased because of his food allergies, with kids waving chocolate treats in his face.
“Yeah, I’ve been through that. Everybody with food allergies goes through it,” he says. “There are people who’ll take advantage of you to try to make themselves feel better.”
Many people just don’t understand the severity of food allergies, says Duty’s father, Jeff Duty.
“If there are chocolate cupcakes, they’ll put one under his nose and say, ‘You can’t have it.’ It happens more times than I would’ve guessed—even at his age,” Jeff Duty says about his son’s experiences. “The parents don’t get it and the kids don’t get it. They think they’re being funny. I’ve tried talking to the parents, even the kids, and some don’t think anything is wrong. If we can’t educate them, we just have to remove ourselves from that particular situation and know that it’s nothing personal. It’s just the way some people are. Don’t stick around to let them continue doing it.”
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