Improving anti-bullying laws and policies to protect youth from weight-based victimization: parental support for action.

BACKGROUND: Weight-based bullying is a prevalent problem among youth with overweight and obesity, but remains neglected in existing policy-level strategies to address youth bullying. Parental support is an influential catalyst motivating political will for policy decisions affecting youth, but has received limited research attention.

OBJECTIVES: To assess levels of, and predictors of, parental support for school-based policies and state/federal legal measures to address weight-based bullying in 2014 and 2015.

METHODS: Identical online questionnaires were completed by two independent national samples of parents in 2014 and 2015 (N = 1804).

RESULTS: Parental support for all policy actions was high (at least 81%) and significantly increased from 2014 to 2015 for legal measures that would a) require state anti-bullying laws to add protections against weight-based bullying, and b) enact a federal anti-bullying law that includes weight-based bullying.

CONCLUSIONS: These findings can inform policy discourse about remedies for youth bullying, and suggest that parental support for improved legal protections against weight-based bullying is present, consistent, and strong.