Beverly Monical

Your friends might be making you fat! Study from The New England Journal of Medicine
The findings, published in The New England Journal of Medicine http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/357/4/370, have nothing to do with bacteria or viruses.
Instead, the new data show that obesity is “socially contagious.” That means that people tend to follow suit when their friends and family become obese or lose weight to ditch obesity.
“We find that a person’s chances of becoming obese increase by 57% if they have a friend who becomes obese, 40% if they have a sibling who becomes obese, and 37% if a spouse becomes obese,” say researchers Nicholas Christakis, MD, PhD, and James Fowler, PhD. “What’s new is that your friends, even if they live 500 miles away from you, might have an impact on your risk of developing obesity,” Gillman says.
A new American study shows that obesity spreads among friends and family with close social ties, even when they don’t live near each other. The research is the first to explore the impact of social networks on the spread of obesity, and will help to develop new clinical and public health initiatives.

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