Allergy Bullying

As if it weren't already hard enough for a child with many food allergies to face the every day challenges of avoiding unhealthy ingredients, there is a new threat to children with food allergies in schools. Bullying. A CNN article reports the story of a young 7 year old boy who came home from school in tears after a classmate had threatened to force the boy to eat a peanut: something the boy was severely allergic to. From the boys perspective, being forced to eat a peanut was not a joke, but a death threat. By introducing the article with the story of the young school boy, the author effectively brings these types of situations to life, raising the awareness of readers. The author then puts a twist on the story, and states the statistic of nearly half of children with food allergies have been relatively bullied in school. The author uses the statistic to support his statement that the bullying raises not only safety concerns, but social ones. The introduction of the article sets the author up perfectly for an argument about social norms, and how we are raising our children in our society. Additionally, the author has given himself room to also suggest safety procedures for schools and alternate parenting methods which may deter some children from bullying, or tolerating bullying.