Family, Friends May 'Spread' Obesity

Social norms encourage people to become overweight, study suggests

By Amanda Gardner
HealthDay Reporter

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WEDNESDAY, July 25 (HealthDay News) -- Friends don't let friends get obese.

This may be literally true, according to Harvard researchers who suggested in the July 26 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine that obesity, or the trend to thinness, is socially contagious, "spreading" through social ties.

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"This reinforces the idea that because people are interconnected, their health is interconnected," said study author Dr. Nicholas A. Christakis, a professor at Harvard University. "It takes seriously the embedded-ness of people within social networks and gives new meaning to the concept of public health."

While this may cause people to look differently at their friends and acquaintances (both overweight and thin), the real value of the research is in pointing to new ways to combat the growing epidemic of overweight and obesity, experts said.

"Trying to address the problem on an individual level has been so hard, and it may be because we're not addressing the network, which could be family, neighborhood, community, school," said Dr. Julio Licinio, chairman of the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. "This is a fascinating way to look at the problem, and it may be a very good reason why treatments have been so difficult, because we're only addressing one member of the network."

"It brings up another component of our environment that influences obesity," added Dr. Samuel Klein, director of the Center for Human Nutrition at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. "This would need to be proven, but it suggests that, to be effective in treating obesity, we have to not just treat the person who's obese but also the social network."

The study is likely to become a classic, experts stated.

The issue is of no small concern, since obesity has become a major public health problem in the United States and other Western nations. According to background information in the article, two-thirds of American adults are now overweight, while the prevalence of obesity has increased from 23 percent to 31 percent.

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