Fat Friends May Make You Fat

By on November 5, 2010 in News 10

What’s the old adage — you are the company you keep? From Reuters:

Americans will keep growing fatter until 42 percent of the nation is considered obese, and having fat friends is part of the problem, researchers said on Thursday.

The prediction by a team of researchers at Harvard University contradicts other experts who say the nation’s obesity rate has peaked at 34 percent of the U.S. population.

Obesity

The finding is from the same group, led by Nicholas Christakis, that reported in 2007 that if someone’s friend becomes obese, that person’s chances of becoming obese increase by more than half.

They now think this same phenomenon is driving the obesity epidemic, which will climb slowly but steadily for the next 40 years.

Alison Hill, a graduate student at Harvard and the Harvard-Massachusetts Institute of Technology Division of Health Sciences and Technology, said the study is based on the idea that obesity can spread like an infectious disease and people can catch it from their friends…

[continues at Reuters]

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  • Earbudcontender

    yeah I can see that my uncle is fat and we were good friends. And while we were friends I was actually consciously considering getting fat because he has everything like wife and kids and job and still can enjoy copious amounts of food. And man do I love food.

  • Earbudcontender

    yeah I can see that my uncle is fat and we were good friends. And while we were friends I was actually consciously considering getting fat because he has everything like wife and kids and job and still can enjoy copious amounts of food. And man do I love food.

  • Cerebralcaustic

    friends and family are often the ones who’ll try to drag you down and change your good habits.

    if you lose weight (or exercise regularly, or finish your degree, or save money and use a budget, or work hard towards any goal) it means that (a) you’ll have less time for them and (b) your success will underline their failures. too often, the people who claim to love you will discourage and sabotage you. you want to save money? “Okay, old man … you just don’t know how to party any more” You want to exercise? “gosh, is it safe to go running in the dark before work?” you want to lose weight? “You’d better keep your old clothes in case the weight comes back.” and so on, and so on until they drag you down to their lard-ass loser level.

    As Morrissey sang, “we hate it when our friends become successful,” and as Henry Rollins sang, “The ones who don’t do anything are always the ones who try to put you down…”

    • http://voxmagi-necessarywords.blogspot.com/ VoxMagi

      I’m not so sure its quite such an aggressive phenomenon. It seems more like one of those soft associations more related to self esteem…by keeping company with people who don’t create feelings of self consciousness, it allows a person to just keep letting themselves slide…until they hit the morbid level.

      Anyhow…I’d sing them all a classic Brit punk number… “Don’t just sit there! Do something! do something! Do something!”

    • Untitled-01

      Nobody in my family is like that. I can’t imagine the majority is like this. If your family is really like that, get a new one. If I was friends with anybody like that I’d stop being friends with them.

      I figured the theory that fat people begot fat people makes sense because if you hang out with fat people they obviously will want to eat more often and will be less willing to exercise. If these things are acceptable to you than obviously you’re headed in the same direction.

  • Cerebralcaustic

    friends and family are often the ones who’ll try to drag you down and change your good habits.

    if you lose weight (or exercise regularly, or finish your degree, or save money and use a budget, or work hard towards any goal) it means that (a) you’ll have less time for them and (b) your success will underline their failures. too often, the people who claim to love you will discourage and sabotage you. you want to save money? “Okay, old man … you just don’t know how to party any more” You want to exercise? “gosh, is it safe to go running in the dark before work?” you want to lose weight? “You’d better keep your old clothes in case the weight comes back.” and so on, and so on until they drag you down to their lard-ass loser level.

    As Morrissey sang, “we hate it when our friends become successful,” and as Henry Rollins sang, “The ones who don’t do anything are always the ones who try to put you down…”

  • http://voxmagi-necessarywords.blogspot.com/ VoxMagi

    I’m not so sure its quite such an aggressive phenomenon. It seems more like one of those soft associations more related to self esteem…by keeping company with people who don’t create feelings of self consciousness, it allows a person to just keep letting themselves slide…until they hit the morbid level.

    Anyhow…I’d sing them all a classic Brit punk number… “Don’t just sit there! Do something! do something! Do something!”

  • Untitled-01

    Nobody in my family is like that. I can’t imagine the majority is like this. If your family is really like that, get a new one. If I was friends with anybody like that I’d stop being friends with them.

    I figured the theory that fat people begot fat people makes sense because if you hang out with fat people they obviously will want to eat more often and will be less willing to exercise. If these things are acceptable to you than obviously you’re headed in the same direction.

  • johnMmyers

    Our body fat is regulated by insulin. There’s no other mechanism.

  • johnMmyers

    Our body fat is regulated by insulin. There’s no other mechanism.