(File Photo)

    BEIJING, July 13 (Xinhuanet) -- Youngsters suffer from teasing, rejection, bullying and other types of abuse because of their overweight, a new research in U.S. said in media reports Friday.

    Researchers said overweight children are two to three times more likely to report suicidal thoughts as well as to suffer from other health issues such as high blood pressure and eating disorders.

    "The stigmatization directed at obese children by their peers, parents, educators and others is pervasive and often unrelenting," researchers with Yale University and the University of Hawaii at Manatoa said in the July issue of Psychological Bulletin.

    The obesity rate in the United States has increased at an alarming rate over the past three decades. If nothing is done, obesity will soon become the leading preventable cause of death in the United States, researchers warned.

    But while programs to prevent childhood obesity are growing, more efforts are needed to protect overweight children from abuse, emphasized the lead author Rebecca M. Puhl of Yale's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity.

    "This is a form of bias that is very socially acceptable," Puhl said. "It is rarely challenged; it's often ignored."

    The researchers reported, obese children had quality-of-life scores comparable with those of children with cancer.

    "Weight-based discrimination is as important a problem as racial discrimination or discrimination against children with physical disabilities," they concluded. "Remedying it needs to be taken equally seriously."

    (Agencies)