Study: Obesity is Socially Contagious

[superconnected]

Source: Live Science. com

People who notice their friend packing on pounds might want to steer clear if they value their sleek physiques.

A new study finds that when the scale reads "obese" for one individual, the odds that their friends will become obese increase by more than 50 percent.

The study, published in the July 26 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, suggests that obesity is "socially contagious," as it can spread among individuals in close social circles. The likely explanation: A person's idea of what is an appropriate body size is affected by the size of his or her friends.

Conversely, the researchers found that thinness is also contagious.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20070725/sc_livescience/studyobesityissociallycontagious

---

Please be grownups and not use this to attack overweight people.

I am posting it only because it was a study with notable information where thin people have thin friends etc. I work with size 1 actresses sometimes, and I'll vouch I simply have a hard time eating after giving any of those skeletons a hug. And it is like hugging a skeleton when we meet or say good bye. This expains why they are that way - their social circle and what's accepted.

[Deja Q]

1. Bollocks. Wait, I'll be mature: Utter flapdoodle!

During a bomb scare 7 years ago, coworkers and I went to the local Baker's Square. Everybody ordered pie slices. Except me, I had a salad. I thought nothing of it. Apparently everyone else did. Whatever; I thought this was the land of the free and all that?

Maybe I'm immune to social whims. Mind you, being on the autistic spectrum is probably a factor too. :evilfrown:

[melody]

4. Caution! Fatness causes some young blonde stick figures to keep from finger gargling

Yeah, that's a bad thing.

Do you believe this crap?

[KittyWampus]

23. this is the perfect thread to illustrate that DU'ers don't read the whole article & respond

to the thread title... and MAYBE the first few sentences.

[melody]

26. This is the perfect post to illustrate that some DU'ers don't understand the issue

And so agree with the article.

[Tesha]

32. Give it up; lot's of DUers are deliberately ignorant and very happy to be so. (NT)

[Crayson]

45. Fat friends only or friends that get fat ?

STATISTICS:

Does a fat guy cause his friends to become fat?

Or is it the other way around?
Does he ONLY get fat friends at all because all other despise him?

it would look the same to statistics.

[melody]

2. LMAO! I live in southern California, land of the lean and home of the nutritionally deprived

Thin, I am not.

I think they'd best crunch their numbers again. Fat is contagious like gayness is. lol

[Born Free]

13. I live in the Amish area of Pennsylvania...

We love to eat, and a woman with a few extra pounds still looks good to us...

[K8-EEE]

44. I think this is absolutely TRUE! Just like "drinking buddies"

People who quit drinking or smoking often times find they do better hanging with non-drinkers and non-smokers, I think it's the same with overeaters.

I had one friend when I was a teenager, I actually don't know who was the worst influence her or me, but whenever we got together we would go on these huge eating binges. We would routinely stay out partying and then hit the 24 hour taco places, or eat tuna melts and milk shakes and french fries at Canter's at 2:00 am! People who think, oh that's just teenager stuff, well we really did gain weight though -- I lost touch with her & we both got thinner, now I doubt either of us would behave like that but at the time we were eating buddies just like some people have "drinking buddies." It's kind of a weird thing when people with the same compulsions socialize!

[depakid]

3. Friends also tend to share the same habits

presumably this was controlled for....:dilemma:

[Donnachaidh]

5. And exactly WHO funded these supposed studies?

Really -- who or what corporation put up the money for these candidates for future toilet paper?

It's outrageous that ANYONE would take this total bollocks as anything other than garbage. And even if you don't want people to use them against others -- they WILL use this to discriminate.

Considering the fact that the diet industry takes in over a billion dollars a year -- might we think that THEY might behind this sort of *study*?

Let's make it OKAY to ostracize people because some company paid to have a *study* done that will help the company sell more products in the future. Oh yeah -- because the NE Journal of Medicine doesn't take corporate money, right?

:rant: :grr:

[jpgray]

6. Let's not use it to attack skinny people either. "Skeletons?"

While some people are thin to the point of health-risks, plenty of healthy hunter gatherers would fall under your size 1 "skeleton" bit--it's not necessarily bad or evil to be skinny, just as it isn't necessarily bad or evil to be overweight.

[Political_Junkie]

8. Thank you, JP,

thank you, from the bottom of my size 1 heart!

[Skittles]

10. or attacking blondes

can we at least say FAKE BLONDES? lol

[TomInTib]

7. I live in one of the fittest towns, anywhere. I agree with the study.

We have a lot of tourists and visitors.

I always wonder when I see them traveling together as friends/family.

Not wanting to piss off ant overly sensitive types here, I will just leave it at that.

I agree with the study completely.

[LisaL]

31. Well, I personally don't believe a word of it.

Regarding families being fat-if the people are related to each other, then pardon me, it's not a big surprise they could share the same characteristics. A lot of things depend on the genes. I am not buying that hanging out with a fat person is going to make someone fat.

[daleo]

9. It makes sense

People pick up cues of what is normative from their social environment, especially from their closest peer sets. You would probably find similar results for formality of dressing, grooming, etc.

Of course it will just be a statistical tendency - individuals will still have plenty of scope for variation.

[Quantess]

11. I doubt one gets fat by hanging out with fat people.

I suspect that fat people are drawn to each other, because it's something they have in common.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

19. Bingo. The implied causation is likely reversed. -nt

[KittyWampus]

20. if you read the study, when a close friend gets fat it becomes less stigmatic-

that is one of the suppositions.

[LisaL]

30. I don't believe it.

I personally haven't seen anyone getting fat because they hang out with a fat person.

[cobalt1999]

12. Considering you tend to choose friends who do similar activities..

Runners tend to meet and make friends with other runners. Friends ask other friends to go bike riding, water skiing or play racket ball together. I can see where active thin people have active thin friends.

If you live a more sedentary life, you may make friends who share more sedentary interests.

[mcscajun]

14. We have a winner!

Of course, there are exceptions in every direction. My circle of friends includes White Mountain hikers, avid bikers, couch potatoes, weekend warriors, occasional dancers, and some semi-active folks in the middle. We're all middle-aged to retiree age, and some have a few extra pounds, some (like me) have a lot more than extra, quite a few are lean (but never mean), and we all give great hugs.

Where our interests intersect, so do we; when they don't, we group off in subsets. When it's time to party, we all do. I call that pretty normal; it's just life.

[KittyWampus]

21. No, this is a study that happened over many years. And includes friends LOSING weight as well

[pitohui]

24. yeah a lot of responses here from people who didn't read the article EOM

.

[unc70]

15. Or maybe it is really caused by an adenovirus (AD-36?)

Increasing peer-reviewed studies of birds, mice, and now monkies have shown that certain adenovirii disrupt the proteins that regulate fat retention in cells. Infected animals gain 50-100% more weight than non-infected ones fed the same rations. Insects may contribute to the spread fo the virus, similar to pink eye which can be spread by contact or by gnats. I think I have posts/journal here about this.

[pitohui]

25. if you read the study, the infection would have had to be in their youth

even if your best friend lived many thousands of miles away, if she gained weight over the years, you were more likely to as well -- so they don't think it's a virus, more a meme if you will

my feeling is that it is peer pressure, if someone you love and respect of the same gender is okay with being heavy, it's easier to let yourself go a little over your own weight

in the few cases in the study where the best friends were a man and a woman, the man's weight gain did not affect whether or not the woman also gained weight

[unc70]

29. I have spent a lot of time reviewing the study and its supplements

I also read the accompanying editorial. I now think that the study shows little more than the known genetic contributions to obesity, weight gain during middle age, and possibly weight loss late in life.

First, there are a lot of problems with this study. Most are caused by the the limited pool of cohorts in the study. Here are obvious problems:

1. The "egos" are all children of the initial study subjects of 1948 who are at least 21 in 1971. The social network members are comprised on only the initial subjects and two generations of their descendents. The "friends" are drawn from this same pool.

2. Of the 38 thousand network connections, only 5 thousand were "close friend" connections and involved only 3 thousand unique friendships. The remaining 33 thousand are immediate family members. The "friends" might also be more-distant family members (e.g. cousins).

3. The initial 5 thousand subjects all lived in the same town, with little ethnic diversity, and often with family/genetic relationships among the participants. Because the subject pool in not independent, great care is needed when analysing the data and drawing any conclusions. My "gut" tells me they don't have enough truly independent observations to be able to conclude much of anything other than that obesity runs in families.

4. The participants who are geographically separated are more-likely to be relatives who moved awy. No wonder there is still a correlation, for example among siblings, with the older one gaining the weight first.

5. The level of correlation within the network seems highly-consistent with the genome mapping results given the probablity of inheriting one or more of the known markers from parents and the resulting genetic risk factors.

6. The third generation is too young to have greatly experienced the "middle age spread". There may also be problems with how they accounted for typical weight-loss among the elderly.

7. I would not expect that this population would have felt any effects from the adenovirus component until very late in the study. The AD-36 appears to have jumped from birds about 25 years ago and spread mostly northward from the Gulf Coast and arrived late to New England.


I will be much more interested in see the Framingham data after they complete the genome analyses of the archived blood and tissue samples and have checked for antibodies to AD-36 and its relatives.

I will look at this some more, particularly the nasty details of how they tried to compensate for the impact of inherited genetic markers. I will also discuss this with a couple of friends who run several other NIH longitudinals.

[trudyco]

42. Thanks for the analysis. I always have trouble believing articles

from research studies. They seem to always get garbled and so much research involving humans are poorly done.

In my opinion people prone to overweight hang out with others of similar characteristics. They tend to like to do the same things that keep them at similar weights. Obesity is usually a lifelong problem that happens for some in childhood and some at puberty... so I'd like to know how they ruled out "birds of a feather" if they are talking about a lifetime. Certainly friends may persuade friends to lose weight with them, especially women, but then they gain it back.

I've also seen people who are runners hanging out with runners and people who are vegan and/or organic and other food restricted hanging out together. I have friends of various living styles and sizes but the friends I am most comfortable with and seek out the most like to eat similar to me and like to exercise and do activities similar to me.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. In the 1970s and 1980s, East Germany dosed its female athletes with steroids

Outsiders noticed their bulky physiques, deep voices, and hairy chins.

Years later, when the scandal broke, and the former athletes were reporting all sorts of side effects from the steroids, including organ damage, infertility, and bone damage, a writer asked one of them why they didn't notice the weird physical changes they were going through.

She answered that given East Germany's intensive sports training schools, she rarely saw anyone but other athletes. Women with unusual amounts of male hormones looked normal, because that's the only kind they ever saw.

I think the same thing works for the most common body type in a society. When I go to Japan, I think, "Everyone's so skinny." when I come back here, I think, "Everyone is so heavy." But then a few days later, I don't notice anymore.

[NuttyFluffers]

18. i remember the "everyone is so skinny!" in japan moment.

but i also noticed that i wasn't paying attention to the fat people. i was somehow hyper-fixated on the skinny people. after around the end of the first week i started to notice the fat people. and i noticed that not only were they there, but they were quite large, and a lot more than i ever thought there would be. somewhere around wandering the trains in rural japan, and reflecting on kamakura, and looking around nagoya, i realized i was overlooking all the hefty, zaftig, and fat people of japan. i did notice though that areas that had to be serviced by more cars and less walking tended to have more obese people. i think where people have to spend 2-3 hours a day commuting by sitting on their ass and driving everywhere has a huge part to do with heaviness. i did notice certain parts of a city's downtown -- like ginza and shinjuku, business districts in particular -- people were thinner. i guess it has to do with a lot of walking, stress, coffee, and cigarettes.

[trudyco]

43. I bet working longer hours effects weight, too. -nt

[markk]

17. back off fatty I dont want to catch your

fat germs.

what a stupid study. Who woulda thought people who behave in similar ways are friends! Unbelievable, this stunned me more than the fact that a failed oilman/successful drug addict wasn't a horrible president.

[pitohui]

22. it's called peer pressure, seems pretty obvious to me

we all acknowledge that eating disorders are contagious, no reason that a more relaxed attitude toward weight gain wouldn't also be so

[Socal31]

27. Its funny how many people defend "fatness" and poor-nutrition.

They call healthy people "annorexic" and "mal-nourished". Wake up people...if you are overwieght, not only are you more likely to get serious diseases and die than smokers and drinkers, but you are costing the tax-payer a TON in medical treatment.

[pitohui]

28. no healthy person is being called anorexic

i mentioned eating disorders because in my youth i had one, it was in no way healthy, and young teens and young women die of this every year, considerably younger than anyone dies as a result of being overweight

there is peer pressure to eat or not eat, at least among girls and women, and no use saying there isn't

[LeftyMom]

35. In the past you have suggested that many perfectly healthy people on DU have eating disorders. nt

[distantearlywarning]

33. What are your stats, skinny?

I wonder if you'd like to compare how much we each could potentially cost "the taxpayer" in medical treatment? I went to the doctor last week and had a yearly physical. Here's what they found:

Blood Pressure: 106/60
Heart Rate: 70
LDL: 129 (Optimal)
HDL: 60 (Good)
Triglycerides: 130 (Normal)
Blood Sugar: normal (90 fasting)

The doctor said I had the stats of a healthy athlete, despite being 30 lbs overweight. I've been overweight for going on 7 years now (after contracting hypothyroidism, just in case you're curious about that), and these are typical results for me. Since I actually exercise and eat a balanced diet (contrary to popular belief), I have no reason to believe that these numbers will change in the future either.

So far, I haven't cost any "taxpayers" anything in medical treatment, and don't expect to down the line either. For one thing, I have decent health insurance (thank goodness), so my company picks up the tab for my thyroid medication and bi-yearly doctor visits/bloodwork. For another thing, I've been pretty absurdely healthy my entire life, from thin to fat and in-between, and have never visited the ER for anything more serious than a broken finger. I don't even get cavities (of course, I have dental insurance for that too, so never fear, loyal taxpayer, that I might take .10 out of your hard-earned paycheck for a future filling).

Of course, anyone can have bad things happen to them, regardless of overall health at any given time. I might step out my front door this morning and get smacked by a Wonder Bread truck. Assuming my insurance didn't pay for it (it probably would), well, the same thing could happen to the anorexic and malnourished...er...healthy people out there. As far as the so-called "preventable diseases", well, statistically, people with high blood sugar are more likely to get diabetes, which "the taxpayer" might have to pay for. Luckily, that's not me. Statistically, people with high bad cholesterol and low good cholesterol are more likely to have heart attacks, which "the taxpayer" might have to pay for. Luckily, that's not me either. People with high blood pressure are more likely to have strokes. I have to purposely eat salt just to keep my blood pressure up above 100/60 so I don't have episodes of dizziness (for real - I've been tested at morning appointments at less than 90/60 and it freaks the nurses out). So I don't think that will be me either. Cancer (another disease linked with obesity)? Well, perhaps. But lots of skinny people get cancer too, some of whom will undoutably pay for it using "the taxpayers" dime. Cancer doesn't run in my family and I eat lots of veggies, so I'm probably just about as safe as anyone else out there, skinny, fat or otherwise.

How about you, healthy guy? Are YOU going to cost "the taxpayer" in the future because of your bad stats? How are your cholesterol and blood pressure, Mr. Skinny-Minnie? The rest of us would love to see how you rate statistically. Be warned, though, I may feel free to give you diet and exercise tips or even humiliate you if you don't live up to my (admittedly rather exalted) standards. After all, I wouldn't want you to cost me, a humble "taxpayer", anything in the future just because you were too lazy to take care of your cholesterol and blood pressure. So let's see it - cough up the results of your latest physical so we can all view and comment on it. It's our right as taxpayers, after all.

(Yes, I think it would be an interesting wake-up call for many people if we all had to walk around with the results of our last physical on a sign around our neck for everyone to see and comment on, just like fat people do every day.)

[Socal31]

36. What is your point?

Im glad you are healthy even though you are considered over-weight. (By the way, calling someone "skinny" isnt an insult) However, I am sure this is not the case with most people who are 30+ pounds over. Im sure I can go find a smoker who has perfect lung function, no HBP, and who will develop no cancer. Does that mean it is safe to smoke? You are more than likely the exception to the rule, my friend.

[Writer]

38. Not enough people take statistics.

I bump into this a lot when people lose their control over studies like this. There's always that poster that introduces that "special exception" to the discussion and expects his or her personal example to be the exemplar for all.

Hey - IT'S NOT ALL ABOUT YOU!!! K?

[Writer]

37. Wait a minute... what is your weight and height?

[dmallind]

39. Care to back that up?

The silly CDC study that extrapolated 365000 deaths from obesity a year has already not only been debunked but, a great rarity indeed, officially retracted. They currently use numbers that are lower than alcohol and 1/4 that of smoking.

http://www.cdc.gov/PDF/Frequently_Asked_Questions_About_Calculating_Obesity-Related_Risk.pdf

Oh and even with the silly inflated number it was still less than smoking at 435000 so even that one stupid exaggerated and retracted study doesn't make your claim true.

Now can you link to anything that actually shows aggregate affects on longevity rather than scaremongering BS about increased risk of X? I mean buying three lottery tickets gives you a 300% greater "risk" of winning than if you had bought one. How often does it make a difference? Whenever ANY study about ANYTHING says "XXX% greater chance of Y" you should ALWAYS do what you can to find out what the base risk of getting Y is. Exchanging a 99.999% chance of avoiding some specific oogabooga disease with strict diet and exercise for a 99.997% chance of avoiding it and living how you choose to might seem like a bad idea to you, but not to me. When you come up with something that says "fat people get this horrible disease at a rate of 50% and non fat people at a rate of 0.5%" then I'll listen, but panicking and making huge lifestyle changes over a couple percent either way? Who the hell cares. We all have to die of something.

I'll even save you the time since you of course will do nothing that might invalidate your silly bigotry by confronting facts. The only group of overweight people who suffer a significant loss in life expectancy are white males who had a body mass index of over 40 (just short of 300lbs at average height) by age 20 and never lost the weight. Every other group is looking at either no change or a couple or three years. So, if you are naturally endomorphic your choice is, on average, live to 80 by spending hours a day exercising and cutting out a huge range of food choices, or live to 77 how you choose. Sure some fatties will drop dead of heart attacks before 77, but so will some scrawnies too. Anecdotes can never be used to contradict data (although I'm sure it will be tried).

[nuxvomica]

34. A bit OT, but that's a poor use of the word "sleek"

It usually means "well-fed", like the story in the Bible about the dream of the seven "fat, sleek cows".

[ohio2007]

40. "I'm loving it"----------

big brother says "eat"

[camero]

41. That's news to me

I've been best friends with an obese person for 33 years and it hasn't rubbed off on me. The study is pure bullshit.