Lonnie Chavis, the 10-year-old actor who who plays little Randall Pearson on the hit NBC drama “This Is Us,” has a message for his cyberbullies fix your heart.
Chavis posted a video on his Instagram account responding to those who go online to make fun of his appearance. The video has gotten more than 400,000 views.
“I could get the gap fixed, like braces can fix this, but like can you fix your heart, though” he said in the video posted on Monday.
“I mean, there are kids out here killing themselves just because of y’all hating and trolling and doing just crazy stuff,” he continued. “I mean, it’s stupid. I mean, is it fun No. It hurts people. People kill themselves and you’re the one who’s making them do it. Fix your heart though, for real.”
A recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report found that currently the top three leading causes of death for ages 1019 are accidents, homicide and suicide. From 2000 to 2016, suicide rates for females ages 10 to 74 and for males ages 15 to 74 have steadily increased.
Although suicide rates in all age groups are on the rise, the substantial increases are seen in younger age groups.
“We’re not seeing the same kind of increases among the oldest adults, but we are seeing substantial and sustained increases now for the other age groups,” Tom Simon, associate director for science in the division of violence protection at the CDC,
told CNN
Approximately 33.8 percent of teens between the ages of 12 and 17 have been cyberbullied in their lifetime, according to a
Cyberbullying Research Center survey. Experts have said cyberbullying could be one of the reasons teen suicide is on the rise, especially for girls.
The use of social media and cyberbullying may affect teenage girls more than boys, Dorian A. Lamis, an assistant professor at Emory University School of Medicine/Grady Health System, told CNN.
Puberty starts as early as eight years old in some girls. The psychosocial and physical changes may leave girls “vulnerable to depression, anxiety and other psychiatric disorders earlier on in life.” These risk factors for suicide may catch up with a girl as she grows older.
