Okay, I've made fun of medical research studies here and there for bizarre, useless, redundant findings, and redundant findings.
But a study published yesterday in the respected journal Pediatrics has stunned even me.
This study found that (shocker!) overweight kids are ALMOST TWICE AS LIKELY to get teased/bullied than kids who are of average weight.
Really. They did a study to find this out.
I'm sure someone out there is going to claim I'm supporting bullying. Or making fun of the overweight. But my ONLY point here is this: does this conclusion actually surprise anyone? Was this research necessary?
Disclaimer: I was NOT a bully. I was the bully-ee. So don't look at me as someone defending the playground thug. I hated them.
These researchers, using somebody's money, actually studied 821 kids in 3 elementary school grades in multiple schools across the U.S. It didn't say how long this groundbreaking research took. I can only assume that we've now learned everything there is to possibly learn in pediatrics, and so research is expanding into this sort of stuff.
Let's face it. ANYONE who grew up in the American school system (and likely any school system on Earth, after all, Augustus Gloop was German), could have told them this. Any KID in school today could have told them this. Any PERSON who watches a playground for 10 minutes could have told them this (although more likely would be arrested for being a stranger watching a playground and taking notes).
But, to prove my hypotheses, I did my own research, using 3 renowned scientists:
Marie Grumpy is known for her veterinary research in improving the eyesight of dogs.
Craig Grumpy is known for techniques to convert pharmaceutical models into aquatic habitats.
Frank Grumpy, at an early age, did research into how many cardboard boxes full of adhesive band-aids can be flushed down a toilet at once (his submission to American Plunger Journal was rejected because he didn't know the alphabet at the time).
So I showed each subject 2 pictures, which I found on Google images. One showed a thin kid, and the other a not-so-thin kid. Each of my 3 associates was asked which kid Jake Rottweiler (their school bully) was more likely to pick on.
All 3, in separate questioning, and with no access to their colleagues' answers, picked the not-so-thin kid.
My project took all of 15 minutes, and cost me a $3.49 half-gallon of Cookie-Dough-Explosion ice cream (to pay my research subjects for their time).
Take that, Pediatric journal writers.
They always talk about how the fat kids get bullied for their weight. They never, ever study why the skinny kids do it to the fat kids. There seems to a be a presumption that the skinny kids' behavior is accepted.
ReplyDeleteI saw that study. I considered blogging on it in my "Uh, DUH!" series, but this one was better:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100503111517.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29
(Parents are sure every other teen is sexually active, but not their own.)
Dissection coming next Monday to a blog near you.
Um...that was hysterical. It left only one question from me, a social worker. Isn't that more of a sociology/ psychology/ social work study?
ReplyDeleteJust saying.
Melissa
I really wish this was a site with popularity upvoting, so I could upvote you for "...redundant findings, and redundant findings."
ReplyDelete(But since it's your own blog, that would be fucking retarded. Just like the study cited here).
I really like how you paid them with a high calorie, fattening snack. :D
ReplyDeleteOf course, what the researchers neglected to mention is that they themselves were the ones doing the bullying.
ReplyDeleteI read an article about this.
ReplyDeletehttp://health.yahoo.com/news/healthday/bulliestargetobesekids.html
At first I had the same reaction.
But *I* thought they did kind of have one good point...
""One of the reasons we started this study is that obesity is so much more common today. Now that about half of kids are overweight or obese, it doesn't make you such an outlier anymore, so we thought maybe kids wouldn't be bullied for being overweight anymore," said study author Dr. Julie Lumeng, an assistant research scientist at the Center for Human Growth and Development at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She added that the researchers also hoped they might be able to find some protective factors against being bullied, such as doing well in school.
"What we found, much to our dismay, was that nothing seemed to matter. If you were obese, you were more likely to be bullied, no matter what," she said."
And I kind of agreed. Most of the kids I see today are overweight. You'd think it'd be less of an issue, even slightly.
I'm just saying.
My goodness. I wonder who paid for that non-sense...er, valuable contribution to science.
ReplyDeleteThen apparently my school was messed up... I was the bullied thin kid.
ReplyDelete<>< Katie
Listen grumps, tenure is a-callin and you better publish something or be fired. Either that, or you need something to write your dissertation on. You don't know what the consequences may be for the authors that they published this study, many of which may benefit society. For example, maybe someone got a PhD and will use said PhD for non-research purposes, but ones which require research experience. Wouldn't be the first time. The NSF is who you should be yelling at for funding it.
ReplyDeleteAn ethics committee would have never approved the food bribing of subjects.
ReplyDeleteAnd considering the research shouldn't the food bribe have been carrot sticks and soda water??
:p
melissa- turf wars over meaningless research? careers are at stake. let the games begin.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember any follow up on converting that model into the aquatic habitat mentioned in this post...
ReplyDeleteAnon @ 3:09 - it was destroyed during the conversion attempt.
ReplyDeleteReported here:
http://drgrumpyinthehouse.blogspot.com/2009/10/dr-grumpy-regrets.html
You methods raise a really interesting point. That is, why is it when doing pediatric research don't the adults EVER ask the kids what THEY think. There are all these childhood obesity researchers who sit around all day scratching their heads about why do children eat junk food? I seriously want to shake them and say, "BECAUSE IT TASTES GOOD, IDIOTS. AND THEY'RE HUNGRY."
ReplyDeleteSome things just boggle the mind.
They should follow up with some other much-needed studies:
ReplyDeleteDo children with horrible disfigurements get bullied? Even if they're really cool people?
Do children really prefer chocolate and candy to broccoli and brussel sprouts?
This reminds me of a small group session we had this year when the topic was access to care among the homeless. There was a JAMA article we had to read, and in it they found that the homeless believe they have less access and more utilization of emergency room services, etc. No shit! And this article was published in 2005. I've begun to notice a lot of articles in JAMA are like this--pointless. Maybe I should cancel my JAMA sub. and get NEJM instead.
ReplyDeleteThe next issue will report on a study to decide whether diet or lack of exercise is responsible for the overweight kids.
ReplyDeleteFrom the study: The investigators also examined the possibility that being bullied predicted later weight gain, possibly because being bullied created stress that resulted in behaviors such as comfort food consumption.
ReplyDeleteHowever, they found no association between being bullied in third grade and an increase in BMI z-score during the subsequent two years (β = 0.050, 95% CI −0.049 to 0.149, P=0.32).
That's at least interesting.
Albinoblackbear stole my thought of trying to get your study past an IRB. I know my hospital wouldn't approve paying the subjects with such hazardous food. And I too fit into the category of thin bullied kid, but that was only freshman year of high school by some seniors.
ReplyDeleteYour post and these comments are more interesting than the study in that several people mention that they were bullied, but not that they bullied anyone. I wonder if you did a study, how many people would actually admit to having been a bully in their childhood? I'm guessing it'd be a very underreported demographic. I'm betting many people who said "I was never the bully, but I was bullied" only remember times in which they were bullied, but have completely forgotten when they were rude or ganged up on some outside student, effectively forgetting that they too were bullied. Or perhaps serial bulliers just have a rosy image of their youth and just don't see it as bullying. I'm not saying anyone HERE is lying of course...
ReplyDeleteNow if the study had shown that the kids were previously thin but were being bullied for other reasons and engaged in comfort eating resulting in epidemic childhood obesity, that causation would make for a study worth reading.
ReplyDeleteI'm rotating through child psych now, can you tell?
Yes, but if a scientist says it then it MUST be true!
ReplyDeleteNow all they have to do is put it on TV and I'll believe it twice as much.
My guess is most bullies aren't reading medical blogs, being thugs and drug seekers (at least, that's what our old school bullies are up to).
ReplyDeleteAnd Matt with the JAMA subscription - you better not being paying for JAMA - blech. It follows me wherever I go and I haven't paid for it ever, and I am not an AMA member. I can't get rid of it. NEJM rocks.
I was the scrawny kid, that was always a bullied outcast. My parents arranged for a "chubby" kid to be my bodyguard, for awhile.
ReplyDeleteAt recess nobody would invite me into their games, so I was forced to become a loner. Now, as a middle-aged adult, I am told that I have Avoidant Personality Disorder. I am still an outsider, still afraid of being picked on.
In my elementary school, the girl who had braces on her legs and used crutches, because she had, had Polio was very popular.
RSDS