It’s the newest trend in bullying. Once upon a time, all you had to worry about being picked on for was being fat, ugly, dumb, smart, nerdy, well-dressed, poorly-dressed, poor, buck-toothed, four-eyed, or having a speech impediment. Nowadays, all those things are still in play, but there’s also an additional form of bullying in the form of food bullying. Namely, bullies are tormenting students with food allergies by attacking them with food.
In the most noteworthy case, a Wentachee, Washington, bully named Joshua Hickson went to a kid allergic to peanut butter, stuck his fingers in a fellow student’s canned peanut-butter sandwich, then smeared the peanut butter on the allergic child’s forehead, which could have very easily killed him depending on the severity of his peanut allergies. The number of food-based bullies is rising as more and more students become allergic to generally healthy peanuts.
According to Dr. Scott H. Sicherer, a professor of pediatrics at the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute, the number of students bullied rises to nearly 50 percent in middle and early high school. “It was a surprise from several aspects. Overall, the rate was quite high.” Sicherer added that most of the bullying is verbal or taunting-based. “It’s, ‘Oh, I’ve smeared peanut on the water fountain,’ or ‘Ha-ha, you can’t eat this.'”
Tags: bullying trends, bullies, students bullying other students with allergies, peanut butter allergy bullies, students picked on for allergies, using food to torment, Wenatchee, Washington, Joshua Hickson, Dr. Scott H. Sicherer, Jaffe Food Allergy Institute