School Bullies

The start of secondary education can be the happiest time of your life but they can also be the most traumatic, peer pressure is at its greatest and the need to fit in and be part of the crowd can really be a turning point in so many ways.
I look back to my own and remember getting the bus and my older sister keeping an eye on me and making sure I went the right way etc. but also she wanted to catch up with her own friends and not be ‘babysitting.’ I went to my first secondary school for 2 full school years and one term and then as we moved house went to another and the difference between both schools was amazing.
Sadly bullying is part of school life and I have to admit when I look back I was both victim and perpetrator, I am appalled that my behaviour to others in making fun and belittling them just so people would like me and think me funny could have resulted in other class mated being miserable.
I have always struggled to feel sympathy for ‘Fat Kids’ although I blame the parents more than the children although there are always exceptions but I take my hat off to Allie McCormack who having been nicknamed ‘Fatzilla’ and pelted with flour by bullies her mother took the necessary action to help her reduce weight.
Then when Allie was physically assaulted in May 2010 she told her mother she had started getting suicidal thoughts.
'I was desperate to get help, she was so unhappy,' said Lesley, who lives with her daughter in Salford, Manchester.
Allie, who was then 12-years-old was 4ft 9in tall but weighed 13.7st and had a 40inch waist.
So Ms McCormack started searching for something that would help her daughter deal with her weight issue and boost her self-esteem.
She came across the CWM Health's residential summer camp - the first camp set up in the UK to help overweight children.
The eight-week course held at Woodhouse Grove School in Yorkshire rejected a bootcamp philosophy. Instead it focused on making sustainable changes and building confidence.
A typical day included three one-hour classes such as boxercise or basketball and at least one lifestyle lesson, such as learning about portion control.
Lesley appealed to her PCT, MP and even Downing Street for a referral, but was repeatedly turned down.
'The doctors would not listen and blamed me for Allie's weight,' she said.
Finally she turned to her family and managed to raise the £5,000 to send her privately.
It gave Allie the kick-start she needed to turn her life around. The 13-year-old is now 5ft1" but is 3st lighter tipping the scales at 10.9st. She has also lost 10inches from around her waist and has been able to reduce her epilepsy medication by 20 per cent.

Lesley said: 'She is happy and she looks incredible. Allie is a true inspiration to everyone who knows her.'
She added: 'Attacking children or their parents about what they're eating isn't the answer.
'I want to reach parents who are not getting help. We feel bullied to. You stay behind closed doors because every time you open them you get judged.'
Allie plans to return to the camp for a fortnight this year after the fees were donated by the health insurance company Simply Health.
'Allie is so excited she's going back', Lesley said.
'The camp showed her she can be who she wants to be.'
CWM Health, was founded in 1999 by Professor Paul Gately. The summer camp is open to referrals from doctors and PCTs who fund placements, but this year referrals have halved as NHS spending cuts take effect.
For more information about CMW Health visit www.cwmhealth.com
Looking back to school the PE teachers never took an interest in the fat or un co-ordinated kids it was just the sporty ones we took their attention I laugh when I see in films the fat boys getting stuck in goal or defence as that is exactly what used to happen.
What a shame that schools cannot make more of an effort to help children and build up their confidence and educate them about healthy eating.

Plastic Brits part 2

When I read the article I posted in my previous blog ‘Losing my record to a Plastic Brit has left me devastated’ I remembered the fiasco of 1984 and how ironic that the newspaper printing the article should be responsible for one of the worst cases of ‘Plastic Brit’.
The Daily Mail persuaded Zola Budd's father to encourage her to apply for British citizenship, on the grounds that her grandfather was British to circumvent the international Sporting boycott of South Africa so that she could compete in the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
1984 Olympic 3000 metres
Mary Decker crashes to the ground after she and Zola Budd (centre) collide during the Olympic 3000m final.
The media billed the race as a duel between Budd and American world champion Mary Decker, few reporting that a third contestant, Romanian Maricica Puică, had set the fastest time that year.
Decker set a fast pace from the gun with Budd in close pursuit followed by Puică and Britain's Wendy Smith-Sly. When the pace slowed, just past the midway point, Budd took the lead on the straight and ran wide of the pack around the turn. Setting the pace she took herself, Decker, Smith-Sly and Puică clear of the pack. She seemed to assume control of the race coming out of the turn on the track at 1700 metres. Half a stride behind Budd, on the inside, Mary Decker's right thigh contacted Budd's left foot, knocking Budd slightly off balance. Decker maintained her close position and again clipped Budd, striking the leader's calf with her right shoe as Budd moved towards the inside. A third collision followed and Decker stumbled and fell onto the infield. Her left hip injured, she was unable to resume the race.
Although Budd continued to lead for a while, she faded; finishing 7th amid a resounding chorus of boos. Her finishing time of 8 m. 48 s. was well outside her best of 8 m. 37 s. Budd tried to apologize to Decker in the tunnel after the race, but Decker did not respond in the same spirit, and replied, “Don’t bother!” Puică took gold, with Sly in second, and Canada's Lynn Williams the bronze.
Although Budd was booed by the crowd, an IAAF jury found that she was not responsible for the collision. Decker said many years after the event “The reason I fell, some people think she tripped me deliberately. I happen to know that wasn’t the case at all. The reason I fell is because I am and was very inexperienced in running in a pack.”
In general, it is the trailing athlete's responsibility to avoid contact with the runner ahead; whether or not Budd had sufficient control of the race to have pulled into the curve as she naturally did was hotly disputed. "This doesn't mean," track journalist Kenny Moore wrote in the aftermath, "that a leader can swerve in with impunity, but that in the give and take of pack running, athletes learn to make allowances." At first the US media sided with Decker, while the British press supported Budd.
In 2002 the moment was ranked 93rd in Channel 4's 100 Greatest Sporting Moments.
I have never laughed or enjoyed a poetic sporting moment so much and for years my brothers and I imitated the whining voice of Decker “Zolaaa BuuuD”.