Victimization by Bullying and Physical Symptoms Among South Korean Schoolchildren

Being bullied and using drugs are associate with eating disorder symptoms in Brazilian students

OBJECTIVE

This study's main purpose is to evaluate factors associated with eating disorder (ED) symptoms among Brazilian adolescents.

METHOD

The sample consisted of 5,213 students, mean age 13.24 (SD ±0.01), in the eighth grade of 93 public schools from three Brazilian cities. Data were collected through an anonymous self-report questionnaire, assessing: sociodemographics, use of alcohol, tobacco, illicit drugs, binge drinking, bullying, and ED symptoms. We used confirmatory factor analysis and multivariate linear regression.

RESULTS

We found that high levels of bullying victimization, binge drinking and the use of unprescribed weight-loss substances were associated with higher levels of ED symptoms to both genders. However, only among girls, the higher age (β = .10; 95% CI = 0.02; 0.17) and the use of illicit drugs (β = .21; 95% CI = 0.094; 0.34) were associated with increase in the ED symptoms.

DISCUSSION

We demonstrate a significant association of ED symptoms with drug use and bullying, highlighting the importance of addressing these factors in the development of ED prevention strategies.

Correlates of Bullying Victimization and Sexual Harassment: Implications for Life Satisfaction in Late Adolescents

Bullying and sexual harassment are considered widespread public health concerns because they may have negative effects on physical and mental health. However, more studies are necessary that relate these forms of victimization and their overlap with subjective well-being. This study explores the prevalence and association between different forms of bullying victimization, sexual harassment, and life satisfaction using a sample of 47,114 students aged 16-18 years and from 646 Peruvian educational institutions. Face-to-face bullying was the most reported type of victimization, followed by cyberbullying. There was a large degree of overlap between these two forms of bullying as well as between traditional bullying and sexual harassment. This overlap causes a decrease in life satisfaction in late adolescents. Thus, the need of preventing the negative dynamics of violence in order to prevent the overlapping of different violence forms in adolescence is discussed. Finally, implications for school nurses are outlined.