Extemporaneous Writing SS First Place Raúl Hasbún ... - HOSA

Extemporaneous Writing
SS First Place
Raúl Hasbún
Bullying: A Mental Health Challenge
A small, thin boy, already thirteen years old but still prepubescent, with the high-pitch voice so
characteristic of preteen years, is pushed against his locker during lunch at school by the classic jock, all
because his glands have yet to signal the development of secondary sex characteristics in him. The tall,
lanky girl, who stares down at anyone that talks to her and hunches her shoulders in a futile effort to
make herself shorter, cannot go through an entire day at school without hearing the word "Sasquatch"
called out as she walks by. The overweight boy, with an affinity for video games rather than sports, gets
told he is not allowed to play soccer with the rest of his classmates because he will slow his team down,
and so he further retreats into his own world of alternate video game realities, away from the rejection
of his peers. These are all examples of bullying that can occur daily at schools throughout our country,
and even within HOSA chapters. The sheer propensity of bullying in our country, and the intensity at
which it can occur, could classify bullying as an epidemic.
The bullying epidemic, which afflicts countless youth and students daily, has severe effects on the wellbeing
of the afflicted and the afflicter alike. If a person that is bullied is regarded as a victim - someone
that lives in fear every day, unsure of when the next attack will take place and hopefully longing for his
bully to one day stop terrorizing him - then the bully can be regarded as an addict, because he indulges
himself in destructive behaviors that only mask his own insecurities and diminished self-worth, and is
prone to committing the same acts again and again in hopes of filling his own void. As such, both the
bullying addict and victim are affected. The addict is enslaved to behaviors that lead him down a
dangerous road, all the while the true cause of his addiction remains undiscovered within him and ever
growing. Acts of violence once committed on others could become acts committed on himself. The
bullying victim suffers from the immediate effects rather than long-term, like physical injury, verbal
abuse and psychological damage all leading to emotional unrest. The bullies and the bullied are both
critically affected in the three aspects of human well-being that the HOSA emblem's triangle represents:
mental, physical, and emotional.
As future health professionals, it is our job to be knowledgeable of things that can impact our role in a
future healthcare setting. In the future, we may come across patients that show signs of bullying
behaviors or bullied victim effects, such as aggression, quick temper, and insecurities for the former and
physical contusions or emotional bruises for the latter. In the present, it is our job to take certain actions
within our chapters in regards to bullying prevention and response.
The biggest tool in our fight against the bullying epidemic is prevention, and prevention comes through
education. HOSA chapters and members, who at their core stand for the health of the entire individual
in mental, physical, and emotional aspects, need to integrate programs that teach their schools and

communities the dangers of bullying. This can be done through videos that show the effects on students
that are bullied, campaigns at the school to create a more positive atmosphere and communication with
parents about behaviors to look for in people that are a bully or are being bullied. Further, with
consideration for our current age of technology and massive interconnection through social media, a
special note should be made for cyber-bullying prevention, which can include filtering of websites that
provoke cyber-bullying behaviors, like formspring, or education on maintaining privacy settings on sites
like Facebook and Twitter.
In regards to responses by HOSA members when bullying is witnessed, whether in schools or
communities, one must remember to treat both the bully and the bullied. The bully can be interviewed,
and then a conversation can occur to get to the root of his bullying addiction, and then he can be shown
that bullying is not the answer. Bully victims can be helped by teaching them how to prevent bullying in
the future and counseling.