According to the United States Center for Disease Control (CDC) on a daily basis, nearly 160,000 children skip school to avoid bullying.

Many recent news stories have brought widespread attention to a tragic epidemic affecting our nation’s youth: bullying.  Given that most adolescents are extremely conscious of their physical appearance, social identity and how they are perceived by others, the additional pressure and anxiety of being bullied by their peers can be catastrophic.  In today’s increasingly telephonically and electronically connected world, the classic idea of the playground bully stealing lunch money seems practically innocuous.  Especially, when compared with the abusive and oppressive cadres of mean-spirited bullies posting images and text on social networking sites, and barraging victims with spates of cruel text messages.

As individuals move from pre-adolescence through adolescence and into young adulthood, they are regularly working through with a wide range of psychological and physical issues such as, body image awareness, sexual identity, intellectual development and general socialization skills.   These formative years are difficult enough without having to contend with the oppressive effect of incessant bullying.  In the past year, a number of young men have been driven to suicide in response to feelings of despair and hopelessness when bullies relentlessly and often publically assaulted them, verbally and physically, due to their sexual identity.

Educators, parents, and public officials are now painfully aware of the dangers of letting this kind of bullying go unchecked.  The tragic cases brought to light by the media of late are specifically related to sexual identity but there is another subject that the bullies seize upon which cannot and must not be ignored or dismissed: body shape and size.

This area of bullying is perhaps most pervasive and pernicious among teenage girls.  In additional to being constantly exposed to unrealistic body images in fashion magazines and in the electronic media, teenage girls frequently must contend with bullying comments about their weight by their peers.  Since we know that bullying can drive individuals to suicide, it should come as no surprise that an untold number of teenage girls resort to drastic measures and engage in dangerous behavioral strategies to control their weight.

Eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia can develop in response to a number of emotional triggers and underlying psychological issues and bullying should not be discounted when assessing an individual who is suffering with an eating disorder.   In particular, teenage girls are believed to be quite vulnerable to bullying due low self-esteem or other feelings of insecurity.   Without treatment, eating disorders can lead to intractable emotional problems, life-threatening health issues and, ultimately, death.   We must not allow teenage girls, or any subjects of bullying regarding who they are, how they look or what they believe, suffer without support.  As we have seen, the outcome can be deadly.  Many eating disordered individuals are essentially slowly killing themselves in a desperate attempt to deal with unmanageable emotional pain.  It is essential that we as a nation and as individuals remain vigilant and work to squash the growing instances of bullying.  Truly, it’s a matter of life and death.