His food allergies made him a target of another bully soon after that and again in middle school.
Now a new study from Mount Sinai Medical Center confirms that Morgan’s experience is far from unique.
Nearly 1 in 3 children who took part in a survey at the Center’s Jaffee Food Allergy Institute reported having been bullied, but nearly half of parents said they were not aware of the bullying. They also found that about a third of the children reported bullying especially because of their food allergies.
The survey also found that bullying was a bigger contributor to stress and reduced quality of life than food allergies themselves.
Food allergies are on the rise among children, up almost 20% in the U.S. in just over a decade, with 5% of children allergic to foods such as peanuts, tree nuts, milk, eggs, and shellfish, according to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
“We found that when parents knew about the bullying the children’s quality of life tended to be better, but about half the time parents didn’t know,” says researcher and pediatric psychiatrist Eyal Shemesh, MD. “And they often didn’t know about the most serious incidents.”
1 in 3 Kids With Allergies Bullied
The Mount Sinai researchers surveyed 251 children and their parents recruited from the Center’s food allergy center.