Health News – Now that I have grabbed your attention with the title time to get serious about a topic that effects a lot of children and it is not funny. Nearly a third of children with food allergies are bullied, according to researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
That’s a lot of kids across a nation where nearly eight percent of children are allergic to foods like peanuts, tree-nuts, milk, eggs, and shellfish.
The suffering is often done in silence. Nearly half of parents surveyed said they were unaware of the bullying, though both the bullied children and their parents reported experiencing higher stress levels and lower quality of life.
“Child and Parental Reports of Bullying in a Consecutive Sample of Children with Food Allergy,” appears in the online issue of Pediatrics, and surveyed 251 pairs of parents and children.
“Parents and pediatricians should routinely ask children with food allergy about bullying,” said Dr. Eyal Shemesh, Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “Finding out about the child’s experience might allow targeted interventions, and would be expected to reduce additional stress and improve quality of life for these children trying to manage their food allergies.”
By Dan Goldberg/The Star-Ledger
