Bullying is associated with long-lasting effects on children’s mental and physical health, according to a study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics.
Previous research has found strong correlations between bullying and poor physical and psychological health. But few studies have looked at whether the effects of bullying accumulate over time. This study did that. Using questionnaires, it asked 4,297 children from Birmingham, Los Angeles and Houston about their experiences with bullying and their physical and mental health at three different points in time: in fifth, seventh and 10th grades.
At each of those grade levels, the children were divided into four groups: those who had never been bullied, those who had been bullied in the past only, those who had been bullied in the present only, and those who had been bullied in the past and in the present.
Overall, 30 percent of the children reported frequent bullying in one or more of the questionnaires. A child was considered bullied if he or she answered “about once a week” or “a few times a week” to one of six standard questions that are used to assess physical and emotional peer victimization. (Here’s an example of those questions: “How often did kids kick or push you in a mean way during the past 12 months?”)
A consistent pattern
The study, which was led by Laura Bogart of Boston Children’s Hospital, found that children who had experienced both past and present bullying scored significantly worse on measures of mental and physical health than children in any of the other groups, followed by the children who reported being currently bullied. But even children who had been picked on for a time in an earlier grade and then reported that the harassment had stopped were found to be in poorer health than those who had never been bullied.
This was especially true of the children’s mental health. Among the children bullied in both the past and present, 44.6 percent scored in the lowest tenth of the children studied in regards to symptoms of depression and low self-worth. That compared with 30.7 percent of those bullied in the present only, 12.1 percent of those bullied in the past only, and 6.5 percent of those who had not been bullied.
This basic pattern held even after the researchers controlled for independent factors associated with depression, including chronic illness, weight and sexual orientation. (Sexual orientation was determined by answers provided in the 10th-grade questionnaires.)
A similar pattern, but with smaller effects, was seen for physical health. At the seventh-grade level, for example, 30.2 percent of the children bullied in both the past and present ranked in the lowest 10th of the children studied in terms of the difficulty they were having with common physical activities, such as walking long distances, lifting heavy objects and playing sports. That compared with 23.9 percent of the children bullied in the present only, 14.8 percent of those bullied in the past only and 6.4 percent of those who had never been bullied.
By high school, however, the effect on physical health had weakened somewhat. Only 22.2 percent of the 10th-grade students bullied in both the past and present scored in the lowest decile.
It will take a village
The study, like all studies, has its limitations. Most notably, as Bogart and her colleagues point out, the study had an observational rather than experimental design, which means its results are evidence only of an association between bullying and ongoing poor health. They do not confirm that bullying causes poor health.
Still, “this study reinforces the importance of not only intervening early to prevent ongoing bullying but also continuing to intervene if necessary, even when bullying is not ongoing, to address persistent effects,” write Bogart and her colleagues.
The researchers call for more studies to develop “and rigorously test” evidence-based prevention interventions at all grade levels. And they call on pediatricians to be alert for symptoms of bullying and to refer children for mental health counseling as soon as the bullying is detected.
Physicians, along with parents, school officials and others, need “to provide a holistic response that both decreases bullying and strengthens youths’ resilience,” they stress.
You’ll find an abstract of the study on the Pediatrics website, but the full study is, unfortunately, behind a paywall.
Who is the biggest bully?
The Bullying issue is certainly worth exploring and many studies support that ugly playground practice …but consider that we live in a world that supports such overt oppression even beyond the children and their environment?
The greater playground is the one where adults too often perform in similar ways and are rewarded in the practice of same.
Business too often reeks of the practice of bullying others and we applaud their successes however gained?
Yes indeed they are one of the role models one could say, that sets the stage…asserting itself ‘overtly’ ?
Note also all this coming from a nation who too often can be viewed as bully on a global scale?
Money gathering and wars power gathering ; bullying sustained… considered justified even as they destroy the smaller nations victimizing the innocents, the population, the people, whatever?
How can you change bullying-in-the-children if we support that same practice patriotically at times, on the world stage?
Psychological effects of bullying
JIM CROW LAWS/Bullying at its most extreme.
For over 150 years, African Americans found themselves dealing daily with extreme social, political, and economic constraints as well as psychological outcomes such as fear, anxiety, shame, trauma, and insurmountable levels of stress. In addition, social outcomes such as public humiliation, stigmatization, exclusion, imprisonment, banishment, or expulsion are all highly conseqential and sometimes devasting for human welfare.