Your friends can make you fat: study

[CBC News]

If you're putting on weight, you might want to take a look at who you're hanging around with.
A study published in the July 26, 2007 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that obesity may be "socially contagious." The study found that your chances of becoming obese are much higher if someone you are closely connected to becomes obese.
And it may not be because you're spending evenings sitting on the couch with your spouse or kids munching potato chips, eyes glued to the tube. Blame your friends.
Researchers found that if someone you consider a friend becomes obese, your chances of crossing 30 on the old BMI scale go up by 57 per cent. Among mutual friends the odds go up by 171 per cent.
If your spouse becomes obese, you have a 37 per cent chance of doing the same. Among siblings, odds increase by 40 per cent.
On the bright side, that neighbour who loves to mow his lawn and show off his expanding gut won't have any effect on your odds of becoming obese.
Full story: Obesity — it's who you know
If you are overweight, who do you blame?


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[tamarin]

Just shows you have to be careful about your friends and family. We're not only what we eat but what we see.
I wonder how many other conditions and perhaps abilities are co-dependent. Maybe if we hang around with millionaires we'll get rich too. Or share a table with a gifted artist - we'll soon be masters as well. It's worth a kick at the can.

 

[Curiosity]

Oh lord - the study ignored my friends who are mostly vegetarians - not nazi's about it - but hard to share some meals with... some days I want a big old Costco hotdog with all the bad stuff in it.... and I get a craving but I have to slink away and devour one in a solo operation feeling guilty while I enjoy every greasy bite hehe. Some days a salad or eggplant parmesan isn't gonna satisfy.

Fortunately weight isn't a problem - when you grown up in a big family you eat what you can get - plus my mother had a ravaging kind of diabetes so our food intake was limited in sympathy for her necessary diets... and I am kind of a hyper person - burn off food very easily - but I can see people enjoying lovely sumptuous meals with special food lovers who share those same interests.... it is a comforting thing in our stressed out lives.... food ....(and Costco hotdogs)...

 

[Vereya]

The best way to stay slim is to live alone. In this case you can eat only when you are really hungry. And it is often impossible not to eat, when someone around you is eating something delicious. :-|

 

[MikeyDB]

I'm with Vereya on this one...

Live alone and in Ontario as a disabled person and I can guarantee you'll lose weight!

If Richard Dawkins is "right" memetic memory and the influence of memes might very well condition human physiology to particular predispositions......

 

[Dreadful Nonsense]

I loathe when otherwise nice people turn into Atkins Nazis :angry3:

 

[DurkaDurka]

When I lived alone I consumed far less food, but I made up for that with a lot more booze.

 

[Dreadful Nonsense]

When I lived alone I consumed far less food, but I made up for that with a lot more booze.

hey how ya doin ....wish ya started drinking agin...this place is in need of one of yer arec chars

 

[DurkaDurka]

hey how ya doin ....wish ya started drinking agin...this place is in need of one of yer arec chars

I plan on getting thoroughly **** faced tomorrow night.

 

[Dreadful Nonsense]

I plan on getting thoroughly **** faced tomorrow night.

YAYNESS GALORE


WILL YOU DO IT NAKED8O

 

[DurkaDurka]

YAYNESS GALORE


WILL YOU DO IT NAKED8O

Nope, I plan on wearing a burka though.

 

[DurkaDurka]

All it takes is one....

 

[Dreadful Nonsense]

All it takes is one....

hey thats me harem....ok gone for awhile folkses


won't be long!

 

[DurkaDurka]

hey thats me harem....ok gone for awhile folkses


won't be long!

haha, Are you doing the refrigerator role play again Doc? Be the Vegemite spread. :la:

 

[Dreadful Nonsense]

haha, Are you doing the refrigerator role play again Doc? Be the Vegemite spread. :la:

ahhhhh that was gooooooooood.....
man am i good or what?
Why do i know all the right spots about meself huh???
god i make myself happy.....
yup doc yer my lil studdly.....

 

[Twila]

So if my fat friends are likely to make me fat, wouldn't I (being skinny) make my fat friends skinny? Or does it only work one way? because that just doesn't make sense in an evolutionary way....

fat people need to make themselves some skinny friends!

 

[DurkaDurka]

So if my fat friends are likely to make me fat, wouldn't I (being skinny) make my fat friends skinny? Or does it only work one way? because that just doesn't make sense in an evolutionary way....

fat people need to make themselves some skinny friends!

Fat people need to make friends... period. Big Mac's and a Mayo IV drips are not replacements for people.

 

[Dreadful Nonsense]

Fat people need to make friends... period. Big Mac's and a Mayo IV drips are not replacements for people.

ha...i'm switching therapists.
how mucha you-a charge-a

 

[DurkaDurka]

ha...i'm switching therapists.
how mucha you-a charge-a

200,000 Pesos per hour.

 

[Twila]

Big Mac's and a Mayo IV drips are not replacements for people.

just the thought of either of these things makes me lose my appetite..ick!