October 31, 2024

By Courtney Wise

Greetings, MindSite News Readers.

In today’s Daily, multiple studies find that teachers tend to be as much, if not more, guilty of mistreating students with obesity than their peers. Also, researchers find that GPS tracking apps are useful for knowing where your child and their devices are located, but little else.

Plus, AI offers lots of possibilities, but not all of them bode well for the digital safety of children. Women reclaim bodily autonomy through tattoos. And on Sesame Street, Elmo comforts an adult suffering from grief.

And I know it’s hard to relax before this election, but if you have young children, try to enjoy this Halloween with your little ghouls. To keep them safe, make sure their costumes are fire-resistant and fasten reflective tape to their clothing before you head out trick-or-treating.

Obese youth suffer & perform worse academically due to bias from…teachers

The worst treatment Stephanie, an 18 year old from Montgomery County, Maryland endured throughout her school years came from teachers, not fellow students. Overweight from an early age, she felt bad when kids called her fatty and whispered things like, “Do you want a cupcake?” when she walked by. But at least they noticed her, she told The Hechinger Report. Teachers ignored her, or worse: they forgot that she existed. 

Recounting an especially painful memory, Stephanie said she lingered after class once in seventh grade to talk to her teacher. The teacher asked if she was a new student. “‘How did you not notice I was in your class and the entire year I turned in work?” Stephanie wondered. That’s the moment she stopped caring about earning good grades in school. Having endured years of mistreatment from teachers ridiculing her size and relegating her to the back of the classroom, “that’s when I started to feel like I’m a shadow,” she said.

Teacher bias against obese students contributes significantly to youth mental health struggles by reinforcing feelings of inadequacy and exclusion, leading to a negative self-image, researchers say. For students like Stephanie, the contempt and/or dismissal from teachers can compound the bullying experienced from peers. Such treatment undermines a child’s confidence and promotes feelings of unworthiness and invisibility, further exacerbating conditions like depression and anxiety. It also yields worse academic outcomes for students.

Students’ weight influences their teachers’ perceptions of their academic abilities, according to the findings of a 2015 study that analyzed data from a representative sample of children from across the nation. The team of scientists, led by Harvard University public health researcher Erica Kenney, found that weight gain did not impact a child’s standardized test scores, but did subject students to a “small but significant academic penalty” from their teachers. 

A separate study involving 130 teachers found that they issued lower scores to essays they believed to be written by obese students. Teachers were also more likely to perceive heavier students as “messy,” more likely to need tutoring, and not good in math and social studies, said Kristin Finn, a professor at Canisius University who led the study. Yet, teachers believed they were unbiased. “They all think that they’re treating these children fairly,” she said.

Finding ways to eliminate the bias is sure to be tough because weight bias is part of American culture, said Rebecca Puhl, deputy director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Health at the University of Connecticut, who has studied childhood obesity and bias. Focusing on increased exercise and more nutritious meals won’t cut it. Teachers as well as students need to be trained to recognize and confront their obesity bias, which is harming the educational outcomes for growing numbers of children, Puhl said. 

In addition, anti-bullying policies need to be updated to include obesity as a protected condition, researchers said. Adults, including teachers, need to know that ridicule and shame are not effective motivators for weight loss. They contribute to binge eating, reduced exercise and weight gain, Puhl said. Former teacher turned pediatrician, Yolandra Hancock, added that teachers and administrators also need to help obese students “give their bodies what they need” in the form of reasonable accommodations that promote student success in school. 

One 7-year-old boy, who struggled to climb three flights of stairs to access his classroom on time, was told by his assistant principal that “if he wasn’t so fat, he would be able to get up the stairs faster.” But obesity causes bowing of the leg bones, making it much harder to climb the steps. Providing him a little extra time to get to class would have been a simple fix, Hancock said. In another instance, an elementary student nearly soiled himself and was accused of “not focusing” after being refused additional bathroom breaks. But pressure from his abdomen on his bladder meant he really had to go. Hancock wrote a medical note requesting that the school allow him to use the bathroom as needed. “If you don’t allow them to do what it is that their body needs,” she said, “you’re creating more barriers to them being able to learn.”

GPS tracking apps offer parents a false sense of security and can undermine family relationships

Megan Rumney didn’t really want to buy her older son a smartphone when he was in the fifth grade, but she did it anyway. She told Scientific American that she succumbed to social pressure; all of her friends had given their kids one. Besides, his peer group mostly communicated via electronic devices anyway. And though concerned about the risks of social media, the built-in tracking available on phones, along with apps like Life360, gave her a sense of comfort in knowing where he is at all times. Now, roughly four years later, Rumney is uncertain she made the right choice. “It’s good to know where they are and be able to get in touch with them, but it’s also a double-edged sword,” she said. “If I could do it all again, I’m not sure I would.” 

Research suggests her concerns are right. Though the occurrence of serious physical threats to safety have decreased over the past few decades, the rates of psychological disorders have soared. Yale Medicine found that teens who spend the most time on social media are at the greatest risk of depression. And a 2022 study in the Journal of Adolescent Health found that rates of teen depression have doubled over the past ten years. But as importantly, teens are at a critical stage of development that requires parents giving them the space to make their own decisions — without over-surveillance. In fact, being overly intrusive can spark teens’ natural tendency to rebel, leading to resentment and strained parent-child relationships, said psychologist Judy Ho Gavazza. Parents inclined to surreptitiously install tracking software on their teens’ phones do so at great risk; it’s better to be upfront about it.

Moreover, the sense of safety some parents feel in knowing where their kids are is hollow, said Kaitlin Tiches, a medical librarian at the Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. “We equate knowledge of location with safety, but we don’t know how fast the response would be if a parent noticed something was wrong,” Tiches said. Rather than focus on a dot on a digital map, parents should instead determine to teach their children safety strategies to employ in uncomfortable situations or when they feel threatened.

For the best outcomes, parents engaging smartphones to track their kids’ location should have regular open conversations with their children about expectations, experts say. This also pushes parents to reckon with their motivations for tracking. “It depends on how parents use the information. If it’s a tool for safety and open communication, that’s one thing,” said Pamela Wisniewski, director of the Socio-Technical Interaction Research Lab Vanderbilt University. “But if it’s a tool for punishment and policing, that’s another.” 

In other news…

On a recent episode of Sesame Street, actor Andrew Garfield opened up to Elmo about grief, NBC News reports. The muppet has been checking in with friends and the general public all year, ever since a simple, “How is everybody doing?” tweet prompted scores of responses that indicated many of us are struggling with mental health. Garfield admitted that he’s been missing his mom, Lynn, who died from pancreatic cancer in 2019. Though very difficult to miss someone you love so much, Garfield reminded Elmo and viewers that the melancholy of grief is a welcome sadness. “It’s kind of a lovely thing to feel, in a way, because it means you really loved somebody when you miss them,” Garfield said. “When I miss my mom, I remember all of the cuddles I used to get from her, all of the hugs I used to get from her.”

A recent hack of Muah.AI, a website that allows users to create AI-generated chatbots which simulate girlfriends, found that tens of thousands of users have attempted to or actually created child sexual abuse material (CSAM) through the platform. Joseph Cox of 404 Media, the first to report on the abusive content after a hacker brought it to his attention, told The Atlantic that his examination of user-generated prompts revealed users requesting material as egregious as orgies involving babies and young kids. While he can confirm that users requested the content, it’s still not clear if the program fulfilled the requests. Some major AI platforms, including ChatGPT, are equipped with filters and moderation tools with the hopes of blocking the programs from complying with such requests. Muah.AI has no such limitations. 

More than ever before, women are finding the power in tattoos. Permanently placing two small hearts on the inside of her wrist returned a sense of control over her body after a long struggle with infertility, Katie Tonkiss told the Washington Post. “I felt that this was something I could choose to do after such a long time of having no real choice,” says Tonkiss, 40, a senior lecturer in sociology at Aston University in England. “It was an expression of celebrating after a lot of self-blame and frustration.”

If you or someone you know is in crisis or experiencing suicidal thoughts, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline and connect in English or Spanish. If you’re a veteran press 1. If you’re deaf or hard of hearing dial 711, then 988. Services are free and available 24/7.