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I think kids always find something to use as a tool for harrassing and sectionalizing other kids.
The fact that perhaps clothing is more of an issue these days than when we were young (though when I was young I remember a lot of teasing over what people wore -- you did not want to be the kid wearing moon boots on a snowy day after about 1982) is because of the expansion of the middle class and the cheap availability of textile variety.
There is more variety and more money to buy that variety and suddenly fashion comes available as a tool for childhood drama. In the 1940s for the most part everybody wore very similar clothing unless they were on the wealthier side to afford more expensive fabrics.
On the other hand, however, I would say things were worse in this regard in the late '60s and early '70s when the way you dressed was essentially an identity card as to who you thought yourself to be.
Kids have always found ways to tease each other, establish hierarchy in comparison to each other. Weight and clothing may be more involved than in the past but that is just a symptom and not the cause.
And, just to get in trouble (and I've never seen the child of anybody here so it is completely abstract): Maybe your kid is fat. Maybe a little bit of teasing will help put them on a healthier path. You tease the kid who eats glue and eventually he stops eating the glue. I'm not saying teasing is a good thing but it isn't always a horrible thing, and is pretty much a constant across time, culture, and geography. It is just the same peer pressure towards societal norms that adults engage in but, as with everything else kids do, lacks in subtlety.
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