My friend Wendy, in my "thin" social group

Researchers have discovered thinness and obesity are both socially contagious.

What does this mean if you are trying to live the thin lifestyle?  Hang around thin people!

The study was conducted over 32 years with a group of 12,000 people whose height and weight were measured repeatedly, and what researchers found was that when one person in a social group gained weight, the other people in the group tended to gain weight, too.

Researchers also found: 1) A person’s chance of becoming obese rose 57 percent if they had a friend that was obese, 2) Their chance rose 40 percent if they had an obese sibling, 3) Their chance rose 37 percent if their spouse was obese, and 4) People of the same sex had more influence on each other than those of the opposite sex.

Published in the New England Journal of Medicine, this study was conducted in the United States. 

Sister Cheri, Niece Cassie, and Sonja (my family group)

“People have come to think that it is okay to be bigger since those around them are bigger — and this sensibility spreads, “said James Fowler, co-author of the study.

The study also reflected the general increase in weight in the population. Fowler said, “People look to others when they decide how much to eat, how much to exercise and how much weight is too much.”

One great thing about this study is that by getting one person in a social group to control their diet and increase their exercise could result in many people in the group to lose weight.  Thinness is contagious!

See:  “Nothing Tastes as Good as Thin Feels”

This entry was posted on Friday, December 3rd, 2010 at 5:11 am and is filed under Health. Tags for this post: Bathroom scale, BMI, buffet restaurants, Burning Calories, Calorie Calculator, Calorie Counting, calorie myths, Calories, Counting Calories, Diet, Diet Ideas, fat calories, fat grams, hcg, Health, Healthy Eating, Healthy Lifestyle, Healthy Living, Keeping Weight Off, Lap-Band, Living Thin, Living Well, nutrition, overeaters anonymous, real age, Restaurant Eating, Scales, thermic vegetables, trans-fat, Weight Loss, Weight Maintenance, weight management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.