Obese people are often discriminated against. For teenagers, the situation is particularly painful. On the occasion of World Day Against Obesity, associations call for awareness campaigns.
by
The date of 4 March marks World Day against Obesity. An event that makes it possible to sensitize on a disease experienced as a psychological suffering, as much as a disability, especially with adolescents. Depression, anxiety, decline in self-esteem, symptoms related to discrimination are numerous.
According to the last investigation of the 2020 obépi-rock , the prevalence of overweight and obesity in children aged 8 to 17 in France, according to the thresholds of the International Obesity Task Force – Policy structure of the International Association for the Study of Obesity – reached 21% of children aged 8 to 17, with 6% obesity. For Leo (the first names were changed), 15 years, the diagnosis of obesity fell in 2017, when he was 10 years old. The young boy, away for three years, has been strongly touched by the mockery on the part of his schoolmates. “I was treated with big, ugly. When I was running while sporting, we mocked and I was insulted,” he says.
For Valentine, 17, the weight has never been a problem. Until a consultation with a doctor. “He told me about my abnormal weight and asked me many questions about my diet. At the end of the rendezvous, he gave me the number of a nutritionist doctor. It was direct and very violent “,” she admits. This observation has been hard to cash. “I hated myself. I no longer supported looking me in the ice,” says high school girl. His confidence in her flew away. “My relatives did not recognize me anymore. I was afraid of the eyes of others so I did not go out,” adds the young woman.
The “Assassine Reflections” persist
The meeting with doctors does not always happen well. For Anne-Sophie Joly, the founding president of the National Collective of Obese Associations (CNAO) whose objective is to facilitate the link between the patient and the doctor, there are still many cases of poorly trained practitioners to treat obesity and “murderer reflections” persist with respect to patients.
“It is necessary to help anticipate the contexts in which these adolescents are likely to be stigmatized and to react otherwise than by internalizing the devaluation”, stipulates the sociologist Jean-Pierre Poulain, one of the authors of the thesis “teens Obeis facing the stigmatization “, published in April 2007, with the researcher in Sociology Laurence Tiber and the Professor in Nutrition Rossana Proenca.
For Leo, the family has been a real support. “Knowing that when I returned the evening of the school, we were not going to think about my weight, it was good,” he admits with relief. Today followed by a nutritionist in Brittany, the young man gradually resumes a balanced diet. He started walking again socially, in particular in the basketball club of his city. Valentine, meanwhile, found comfort when she met her boyfriend a year ago. “He loves me for what I am and never tried to me about my weight. Nevertheless, I still have a lot of trouble with the image that I reflect,” she explains.
You have 9.19% of this article to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.