Those beaten up for lunch money have less cash as grown-ups, a new study finds. In fact, the bullied end also end up unhealthier and unhappier than the non-bullied.

In “Impact of Bullying in Childhood on Adult Health, Wealth, Crime and Social Outcomes,” published this year in the journal Psychological Science, the authors find that whether you were a victim of bullying, the bully or both, your life outcomes are likely worse than those not involved in bullying. “Involvement with bullying in any role was predictive of negative health, financial, behavioral and social outcomes in adulthood,” the study says. “Being bullied is not a harmless rite of passage or an inevitable part of growing up but throws a long shadow over affected children’s lives.”

Childhood bullying has the biggest impact on one’s future wealth -- as opposed to health, social outcomes and likelihood of engaging in criminal activity -- the study revealed. Victims of bullying were 11% more likely to have negative financial outcomes than children not involved in bullying, and children who were both the victims and the bully, 31.6% more likely. More specifically, compared with children not involved in bullying, victims were 11.6% more likely to be in poverty, 13.2% more likely to get fired from a job, and 8.7% more likely to have problems with financial management. Children who were both victims and bullies are 19.9% more likely to be in poverty, 22.5% more likely to drop out of high school, 27.0% more likely to not have a college degree, 17.9% more likely to get fired from a job, and 25.1% more likely to fail to honor financial obligations like paying bills.

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In addition to those direct financial implications of bullying, there is at least one indirect effect as well: Bullying has a negative impact on one’s health, which can prove to be very costly. Victims of bullying were 12.9% more likely to have health problems than children not involved in bullying, bullies 11.9% more likely and people who were both victims and bullies 27.0% more likely. These health problems include serious illnesses, serious accidents, sexually transmitted diseases, obesity, psychiatric disorders, and more. The cost of obesity alone is high -- the average obese person will rack up $1,723 more in medical costs each year than a normal weight person, according to a study in the Obesity Reviews journal -- and that’s just one of the health conditions that bullying victims face.

So what should be done about this issue? Dr. William Copeland, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University Medical Center and one of the authors of the study, says that this research has some important implications for schools and parents. In schools, the most successful bullying prevention programs are those in which school personnel, parents and students work together, he says. “For parents it is critical to be talking to their children about what is happening at school and how they are getting along with their peers,” he says.

The study, which was a collaboration between researchers at the University of Warwick and Duke University, assessed 1,420 participants four to six times between the ages of 9 and 16 years and adult outcomes between 24-26 years of age.