Fattening Friends

Interesting read on contageous obesity:

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 percent. 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 percent increased chance of becoming obese, too.

Not surprised in the least that family were less influences than friends. Wives tend to not say much about weight gain by their men. Men are afraid to mention weight gain by wives under threat of sexual retaliation or being labeled "sexist" for idealizing some rail thin model (or both). And close friends? In my experience most people's close friends are close because of what they don't say to each other and not necessarily for their blunt honesty.