Keep your fat ass away from me...

sevesd93 · Post by **sevesd93** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 12:20 pm

Are your friends making you fat?

28 Jul 2007, 0000 hrs IST,GINA KOLATA (NYT) ,AGENCIES

Researchers suggest that you can simply put on fat if you are surrounded by fat peers
Obesity can spread from person to person, much like a virus, researchers report.
When one person gains weight, close friends tend to gain weight, too.
The investigators knew who was friends with whom as well as who was a spouse or sibling or neighbor, and they knew how much each person weighed at various times over three decades.
That let them reconstruct what happened over the years as individuals became obese. Did their friends also become obese? Did family members? Or neighbors?

The answer, the researchers report, was that people were most likely to become obese when a friend became obese. That increased a person's chances of becoming obese by 57 per cent.
There was no effect when a neighbor gained or lost weight, however , and family members had less influence than friends.

It did not even matter if the friend was hundreds of miles away, the influence remained. And the greatest influence of all was between close mutual friends.
There, if one became obese, the other had a 171 per cent increased chance of becoming obese, too.

Dr Nicholas A Christakis, a physician and professor of medical sociology at Harvard Medical School and a principal investigator in the new study, said one explanation was that friends affected each others' perception of fatness.
When a close friend becomes obese, obesity may not look so bad. Science has shown that individuals have genetically determined ranges of weights, spanning perhaps 30 or so pounds for each person.
But that leaves a large role for the environment in determining whether a person's weight is near the top of his or her range or near the bottom.
As people have gotten fatter, it appears that many are edging toward the top of their ranges.

The_Dude · Post by **The_Dude** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 12:39 pm

Damnit. Once this gets out, I'm gonna get sued by everyone.

sevesd93 · Post by **sevesd93** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 12:40 pm

The_Dude wrote:Damnit. Once this gets out, I'm gonna get sued by everyone.

G Fresh · Post by **G Fresh** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 12:50 pm

The_Dude wrote:Damnit. Once this gets out, I'm gonna get sued by everyone.

Nah, but they might make you wear some sort of a warning label at all times. "Standing Next to Fleek Could Be Hazardous To Your Health".

Al Quandt · Post by **Al Quandt** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 1:10 pm

The_Dude wrote:Damnit. Once this gets out, I'm gonna get sued by everyone.

'

Think your gonna have lawsuits?

bwohlgemuth · Post by **bwohlgemuth** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 1:26 pm

Someone better warn my size 0 & size 3 daughters right now. Better yet, maybe they should arrest me for child abuse...

G Fresh · Post by **G Fresh** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 1:42 pm

We should all start wearing one of these in support.

deek · Post by **deek** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 1:52 pm

G Fresh wrote:We should all start wearing one of these in support.

That's frickin' hilarious!!!

sevesd93 · Post by **sevesd93** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 2:33 pm

G Fresh wrote:We should all start wearing one of these in support.

Wow, I need one of those.