News, Your best friend can make you fat: researchers (Weight Watchers, pounds, lose weight)

[JD59]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Could your best friend make you fat?

Researchers who have studied "networks" of obesity think so: they found that if someone's friend becomes obese, that person's chances of becoming obese increase by more than half.

Your best friend can make you fat: researchers - Yahoo! News (broken link)

[zorst]

I have often wondered about that as I see two people eating enough food for six people. It's good to know there is some research to back it up. I wonder if the same is true for people who stay fit together?

[belovenow]

I read this elsewhere the other day and there was a a related video which showed the social-network relationships of obese people to others and to thin people (statistics and data collected from multiple other related studies). Over time thin people who were "near" obese people in the social network themselves gained weight and some became obese. It was really a powerful image to see the time lapse of the circles representing the people and their weight getting larger and soon the obese people were almost like centers of obesity.

I certainly think that eating habits are more than genetic - so this does seem to make sense. I just question what people should do about this knowledge except to pay more attention to their own bodies when they eat, rather than to try to eat as much as someone they are with.

[kaykay]

Well, thankfully, this study also found that the converse was true also-if your close friend lost weight, you were significantly more apt to do so too! We laughed about this because recently my husband and I have been attending Weight Watchers. My husband lost about 40 pounds and me about 20. So he encouraged a couple of his best friends to come as well. Both have lost around 40 or 50 themselves now. So it seems to us that this is an example of how we can and do influence our friends positively or negatively.

For whatever reason, this particular linked report did not talk about the positive of influencing your friends to lose weight, but the report I read about it last week in the newspaper did. Apparently, the study showed a strong correlation to the positive as well.