Being bullied during childhood should not be taken lightly as it may have long-term health effects. The stress may ride into adulthood and develop into health risks including heart disease and diabetes.
The undesirable health effects of chronic stress highlight the bad effects of bullying and there is a need for tackling it with due seriousness, according to Susannah J. Tye of the Mayo Clinic and colleagues.
"Once dismissed as an innocuous experience of childhood, bullying is now recognized as having significant psychological effects, particularly with chronic exposure," wrote Tye and team.
The research has been published in the Harvard Review of Psychiatry.
Bullying is a chronic social stress factor with significant consequences for health, and needs to be addressed early, Tye said, and added that child health professionals need to assess the mental and physical effects of bullying in detail.
Bullying has been noted for its linkage with psychiatric disorders, although many are disputing such a linkage.
Physical Symptoms Of Bullying
According to Tye, the physical symptoms expressed by bullied children are vital warning signs of bullying.
Studies on exposure to chronic stress have reckoned bullying as a "classic form of chronic social stress" impacting physical health. The strain may be coming from physical or mental stress and augmenting "wear and tear" of the body.
These strains are called allostatic load reflecting the cumulative impact of biological responses like fighting the stress or evading it by flight response.
Unbearable Allostatic Load
Tye explained that exposure to short periods of stress is easy to recover and normalcy will be gained gradually. But acute stress will make the allostatic load an overload that becomes too hard to shoulder.
This triggers physiological processes inimical to health and affects overall well-being. Inflammatory, metabolic and hormonal responses will flow from chronic stress.
In due course, the stress takes a worse turn with physiological changes causing heart disease, diabetes, and depression with many other psychiatric disorders in tow.
When the physiological systems are damaged from the pressure of early-life stress, it is natural that epigenetic changes such as variations in gene functioning become inevitable.
It has been observed that chronic stress also inhibits the development of psychological skills that sustain resilience and ability to cope with future stress.
Tye and colleagues are recommending that bullying and victimization be treated as a "standard component" of clinical care and mental health care.
However, the researchers have not established any cause-and-effect relationship in the study. But they are urging future research to study the matter through collaborations with clinical and basic science teams to unveil the relationship between childhood bullying and long-term health effects.
Bullying In Schools
The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry also says almost half of all children face school bullying at some point, mainly at primary or secondary school. The estimate is that at least 10 percent of children are victims of regular bullying.
The damage of child bullying is that child takes up a restricted view of relationships with other people. The process also injures their self-image and affects the whole life.
Bullying hurts emotionally and socially. It also hits schoolwork. Cases of depression and suicidal thoughts have also been reported from childhood bullying.
Bullying is essentially intimidation or domination on someone perceived weaker with a bid to establish superiority. Bullying ranges from physical domination to verbal and emotional acts.
