TV Anchor Criticized for Weight Highlights Issues of Bullying in Marion

After a Marion-raised TV news anchor defended herself from a viewer criticizing her weight in a letter, she turned the spotlight from herself to a broader issue: bullying.

Jennifer Livingston, the anchor for WKBT News 8 in La Crosse, WI, changed the subject and addressed children that are bullied for their weight, race, sexual orientation and disability.

"Do not let your self-worth be defined by bullies. Learn from my experience that the cruel words of one are nothing compared to the shouts of many," Livingston said.

October is National Bullying Prevention Month, and coupled with the story from Wisconsin that continues to draw national attention, it raises the question about how bad bullying is in Marion schools.

Read more:

TV Anchor from Marion Responds to Letter Saying She is Not 'Suitable Example' Because of Weight (Poll)

Bullying in Linn-Mar

For that, we turned to Linn-Mar junior and made known months ago after he revealed himself to be behind a Twitter account that sung the praises of those bullied at Linn-Mar High School.

He's been bullied since before he knew he was gay.

Shankles felt the full impact of these words. He's been relentlessly bullied for his sexuality — well before he knew he was gay.

He said that bullying is a serious issue at Linn-Mar, but when compared to other schools, Linn-Mar ranks a 4 out of 10 on the imaginary school bullying scale; 10 being a constant threat of bullying and one signifying no bullying.

Rather, he described the high school's social atmosphere in a way familiar with high school stereotypes: if you don't want to be bullied, don't be obviously different than everyone else.

Who Might Be Bullied

He gave a list of examples:

• "People with a stronger personality are more likely to be bullied, even if they are in a popular click."

• "The color of our skin matters, not racially, but how tan you are."

• "It matters what kinds of clothes you are wearing."

•  "It matters how you talk — if you talk and people find your voice annoying you will definitely have trouble."

Where it's Learned

Near the end of Livingston's segment she came to place blame on parents that inadvertently teach their children how to hurt others.

"There are children who don’t know better," she said, later adding, "If you don’t and you are talking about the fat news lady, guess what? Your children are probably going to school and call someone fat.”

In his experience, Shankles said Livingston has a good point. Much of the rhetoric that students use to bully each other sounds like it came from someone else — as they often makes little sense — even in the narrow, stereotypical world that hurtful comments often come from.

Sometimes these used are words because kids know they hurt.

"There was a friend of mine who someone just kept on calling a dyke," he said. "If you were going to use the malicious word dyke — she was not by any means that — she had super long blond hair."

LBGT Bullying

But there's a complicating factor. Bullying to LGBT teens often doesn't come just from a parent, but learned from a pervasive culture that has long derided gay teens as inherently different from their straight counterparts.

Worse yet, he said the majority of remarks that he considers offensive to LGBT people are done unintentionally. 

Shankles said the use of the word gay in a context that's interchangeable with weird or stupid can be discouraging, even hurtful.

Advice

As mentioned above, Livingston turned her attention away from her obesity, to how children treat those that are different. But she makes the transition by showing her stake in the issue: she's got three kids and fears for their future.

When I asked Shankles what he recommends Livingston's daughters or anyone entering high school do to avoid bullying,  and what to do if bullying occurs, he had two suggestions.

One, try not to stick out.

"Keep your head down and out of site," he said. "Don’t try to be noticed and you won’t be bullied."

But for those that can't or don't want to do the former, he recommends seeking help from school administration. From his personal experience, Linn-Mar has helped enormously in times of bullying trouble.

"If bullying does occur that they can definitely go to someone in the school to make it stop," he said. "I know though my experience at Linn-Mar that it gets taken care of pretty quickly."