Study: Obesity is 'socially contagious'

If your friends and family get fat, chances are you will too, researchers report in a new study that suggests obesity is "socially contagious" and can spread easily from person to person.

The large, federally funded study found that to be true even if your loved ones lived far away. Social ties seemed to play a surprisingly strong role, even more than genes are known to do.

"We were stunned to find that friends who are hundreds of miles away have just as much impact on a person's weight status as friends who are right next door," said co-author James Fowler of the University of California, San Diego.

The study found a person's chances of becoming obese went up 57 percent if a friend did, 40 percent if a sibling did and 37 percent if a spouse did.

Researchers think it's more than just people with similar eating and exercise habits hanging out together. Instead, it may be that having relatives and friends who become obese changes one's idea of what is an acceptable weight.

Despite their findings, the researchers said people should not sever their relationships.

"There is a ton of research that suggest that having more friends makes you healthier," Fowler said. "So the last thing that you want to do is get rid of any of your friends."

The study was published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine and funded by the National Institute on Aging.

Obesity is a global public health problem. About 1.5 billion adults worldwide are overweight, including more than 400 million who are obese. Two-thirds of Americans are either overweight or obese.

Much of the recent research focus has been on the intense hunt for obesity genes involved in appetite or calorie burning. Treatment has been mainly centered on helping individuals curb their weight through better diet and fitness.

The findings could open a new avenue for treating this worldwide epidemic. The researchers said it might be helpful to treat obese people in groups instead of just the individual. "

Because people are interconnected, their health is interconnected," said lead author Dr. Nicholas Christakis, a Harvard sociologist.

(Reuters)

如果你的朋友和家人发胖了，你也得小心了！一项最新研究表明，肥胖具有“社会传染性”，很容易在人与人之间传播。

该项由联邦政府资助的大规模研究发现，即使亲朋好友住得很远，这种情况也不可避免。社会联系对这一问题的影响十分显著，甚至超过基因。

研究报告的撰写者之一、圣地亚哥加州大学的詹姆斯·福勒说：“我们惊讶的发现，住在几百英里远的朋友对一个人体重的影响与住在隔壁的朋友同样大。”

研究发现，如果一个人的朋友发胖，那么这个人发胖的几率会上升57%；如果他的兄弟姐妹发胖，他发胖的几率会增加40%；如果配偶发胖，他发胖的几率则会增加37%。

研究人员认为，这并不只是几个饮食和锻炼习惯相似的人总呆在一起造成的，可能是因为亲朋好友发胖会改变一个人对于“可接受体重”的概念。

尽管有了这些新发现，研究人员称友谊还是应该维持的。

福勒说：“大量研究表明，朋友越多，你的健康状况会越好。所以，与朋友断交是最不应该的。”

该项研究由国家老龄问题研究所资助，其结果在周四的《新英格兰医学杂志》上发表。

肥胖是一个全球性的公共健康问题。全世界约有15亿成年人超重，其中约4亿多肥胖。三分之二的美国人超重或肥胖。

目前大多数研究的重点都是寻找与食欲或热量消耗有关的肥胖基因。对于肥胖的治疗方式也主要是通过更合理的饮食和健身来控制体重。

该项研究结果可能将为治疗这一全球性的“流行病”提供新的方法。研究人员称，对肥胖者进行小组治疗可能比个体治疗有效。

研究报告主要撰写者、哈佛大学社会学家尼古拉斯·克里斯塔基斯博士说：“因为人与人是互相联系的，所以他们的健康也联系在一起。”