Obesity spreads easily through social networks and friendships, and having just four obese friends can double your own risk of becoming obese, according to a new paper published in the journal PLoS Computational Biology by Harvard researchers.
Scientists found that American adults who are not obese have a 2 percent chance of becoming obese, and that number increases by 0.5 percent for every friend they have who is obese.
The “contagiousness” of obesity is blamed on the access to unhealthy nutritional and physical lifestyles that an obese contact can bring, and the rate at which obesity is spread by social links is accelerating.
“We find that while nonsocial transmission of obesity remains the most important component in its spread, social transmission of obesity has grown much faster in the last four decades,” David Rand, a research scientist in Harvard’s Program for Evolutionary Dynamics and a fellow in the university’s Department of Psychology, said in a statement.
“Specifically, the rate of weight gain due to social transmission has grown quite rapidly,” lead author Alison Hill, a graduate student in Harvard’s Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, Biophysics Program, and at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, said in a statement.
The report also claimed that obesity rates in the United States could reach as high as 42 percent of all adults by 2010, after researchers analyzed nearly 30 years of data from the Framingham Heart Study.
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), about 34 percent of American adults are obese today.
Scientists found that American adults who are not obese have a 2 percent chance of becoming obese, and that number increases by 0.5 percent for every friend they have who is obese.
The “contagiousness” of obesity is blamed on the access to unhealthy nutritional and physical lifestyles that an obese contact can bring, and the rate at which obesity is spread by social links is accelerating.
“We find that while nonsocial transmission of obesity remains the most important component in its spread, social transmission of obesity has grown much faster in the last four decades,” David Rand, a research scientist in Harvard’s Program for Evolutionary Dynamics and a fellow in the university’s Department of Psychology, said in a statement.
“Specifically, the rate of weight gain due to social transmission has grown quite rapidly,” lead author Alison Hill, a graduate student in Harvard’s Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, Biophysics Program, and at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, said in a statement.
The report also claimed that obesity rates in the United States could reach as high as 42 percent of all adults by 2010, after researchers analyzed nearly 30 years of data from the Framingham Heart Study.
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), about 34 percent of American adults are obese today.
Friends Read Free