DEFINITION  Bullying: Physical, verbal, or psychological attacks or intimidation against a person who can’t properly defend themselves. Includes two main aspects: 1. repeated harmful acts 2. imbalance of power  Most common types: hitting, threatening, intimidating, maliciously teasing and taunting, name- calling, making sexual remarks, and stealing or damaging belongings or more subtle, indirect attacks (such as spreading rumors or encouraging others to reject or exclude someone)  Cyber Bullying: When someone uses a form of technology (such as internet, cell phone, etc.) to torment, harass, embarrass, and humiliate another person. Different from bullying cause it usually involves someone that is actually much less intimidating than the person they are bullying.  Only about 14% of all parents know what cyber bullying is.

GENERAL STATISTICS  Nearly 1 in 3 students report being bullied in a school year. (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2013).  More than half (57%) of bullying situations stop when a peer intervenes on behalf of the student being bullied. (Hawkins, Pepler, and Craig, 2001).  The reasons for being bullied reported most often by students were looks (55%), body shape (37%), and race (16%) (Davis and Nixon, 2010).  1 out of 5 students admit to being a bully or doing some “bullying”.  43% of all students will admit to having their feelings hurt by something someone said about them  Up to 160,000 students choose to stay home everyday because they are afraid of being tormented in the hallways.

EFFECTS OF BULLYING  Students who experience bullying are at increased risk for depression, anxiety, sleep difficulties, and poor school adjustment. (Center for Disease Control, 2012).  Students who bully others are at increased risk for substance use, academic problems, and violence later in adolescence and adulthood. (Center for Disease Control, 2012).  Bullies show a result of antisocial personality disorder and can have criminal behaviors.  Because of all these other problems that occur suicide can stem.

BULLYING WITHIN THE LGBT COMMUNITY  63.5% of students feel unsafe because of their sexual orientation, and 43.9% because of their gender expression (National School Climate Survey, 2011).  31.8% of LGBTQ students missed at least one entire day of school in the past month because they felt unsafe or uncomfortable (National School Climate Survey, 2011).  71.3% of all LGBT students hear homophobic remarks in the halls everyday  54% of LGBT have experienced cyberbullying compared to 42% of their heterosexual peers.

WEIGHT AND COLOR BASED BULLYING  84% of students observed students perceived as overweight being called names or getting teased during physical activities (Puhl, Luedicke, and Heuer, 2011).  One third of girls and one fourth of boys report weight-based teasing from peers, but prevalence rates increase to approximately 60% among the heaviest students (Puhl, Luedicke, and Heuer, 2011).  Race-related bullying is significantly associated with negative emotional and physical health effects (Rosenthal et al, 2013)  More than one third of adolescents reporting bullying report bias-based school bullying (Russell, Sinclair, Poteat, and Koenig, 2012).

REFERENCES  Center for Disease Control, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (2012). Understanding bullying. Retrieved from:  Puhl, R. M., Luedicke, J., & Heuer, C. (2011). Weight-based victimization toward overweight adolescents: Observations and reactions of peers. Journal of School Health, 81(11), Retrieved from:  Rosenthal, L., Earnshaw, V. A., Carroll-Scott, A., Henderson, K. E., Peters, S. M., McCaslin, C., & Ickovics, J. R. (2013). Weight- and race-based bullying: Health associations among urban adolescents. Journal of Health Psychology. Retrieved from: hysicalHealth_JOHP_10.13.pdf hysicalHealth_JOHP_10.13.pdf  Russell, S. T., Sinclair, K., Poteat, P., & Koenig, B. (2012). Adolescent health and harassment based on discriminatory bias. American Journal of Public Health, 102(3), Retrieved from:  Davis, S., & Nixon, C. (2010). The youth voice research project: Victimization and strategies. Retrieved from: