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Parenting

15th Jun 2017

There’s a new schoolyard bullying trend and it’s horrendous

Laura Holland

age starting school

This is beyond horrendous.

There’s a new schoolyard bullying trend that is unfortunately becoming more popular. It’s been dubbed ‘allergy bullying’ and consists of children being forced to eat food that they’re allergic to.

The new trend has been noticed in Australia with primary school children being dared or forced to eat certain types of food and coming out with an allergic reaction. It’s come to light after researchers in a University investigated the situation.

According to The Sun, one of the researchers, Andrew Fong, said:

“They’re forced to eat food that they’re allergic to, or people tricking them into eating food.

Some of the worst cases of bullying that we looked at is when children have actually had allergic reactions as a result of being bullied.

They can be separated from their peers at schools, and they may not be invited to parties.”

In some cases, the bullying got so bad that the parents removed the children from the school. An allergy expert, Maria Said also added:

“There is a lack of respect and understanding around allergies generally and, when it comes to children, there can be an element of jealousy – some don’t like the special attention focused on the food-allergic children.

Then there are just cases where the bully likes to pick on the kid with allergies.”