Not really, but if you want to be thin, have some thin friends whose behavior to influence you.
The question is why have people gotten so fat so fast ?
Dr. Christakis took the notion of an obesity epidemic seriously when he began researching why people have gotten so fat so fast. Using data collected by the Framingham Study to reconstruct social networks, he found that
friends affected each others’ perception of fatness. When a close friend becomes obese, obesity may not look so bad.
“You change your idea of what is an acceptable body type by looking at the people around you,” Dr. Christakis said.
Find Yourself Packing It On? Blame Friends
I'm not the least bit surprised by these findings. I don't think it's only the fact that your friends find obesity acceptible, but it's also a lifestyle issue. When you hang out with people who are overweight, you find that social events tend to involve food - a lot of food, and not always the right kind of food. You also find that the activities you share are more sedentary. So it's really hard to do the things that you need to do to lose weight. It's not only that the temptations are there, but people tend to give you a hard time if you try to behave differently. Because they consider your attempt to eat healthy an implicit criticism of their own lifestyle choices.
Posted by: LeslieT at July 30, 2007 8:04 PM