School bullying, body size, and gender: an intersectionality approach to understanding US 
children’s bullying victimization

Abstract

We examine separate and combined effects of children’s body size and gender on school bullying victimization in the United States. Second-grade data for the 2012/13 school year from the US Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Cohort, 2011 were analyzed, hierarchical generalized logistic modeling was used, and three forms of school bullying were studied. Girls were less likely than boys to be verbally or physically bullied, and obese children were more likely to be verbally and relationally bullied than non-obese children. The protective effect of gender extends to obese girls when obesity is not a risk factor (physical bullying). When obesity is a risk factor, gender is not protective (verbal bullying) or is a risk factor (relational bullying) for girls. These findings suggest that an intersectional body size–gender lens is crucial to understanding how inequality is produced through school bullying. Future interventions should incorporate an intersectional understanding of school bullying.

KEYWORDS:

• School bullying
• childhood obesity
• gender
• intersectionality
• body size

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Acknowledgement

The content of this research is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Additional information

Funding

Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health [Award Number RL5GM118969], [Award Number TL4GM118971], [Award Number UL1GM118970].