Is Obesity Contagious?

Parent Cafe
1

<p>From the New York Times:</p>

<p>"IS OBESITY CONTAGIOUS?</p>

<p>Obesity often is described as a modern-day epidemic, but only now have scientists found evidence that it spreads from person to person. After studying the social connections and body composition of nearly 12,000 people participating in the Framingham Heart Study over three decades, researchers at Harvard Medical School found that subjects were at greatly increased risk of becoming obese if they had friends who were themselves obese."</p>

<p>"Proximity did not seem to matter: the influence of the friend remained even if the friend was hundreds of miles away. And the greatest influence of all was between mutual close friends. There, if one became obese, the odds of the other becoming obese were nearly tripled.</p>

<p>The same effect seemed to occur for weight loss, the investigators say. But since most people were gaining, not losing, over the 32 years of the study, the result was an obesity epidemic."</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/25/health/25cnd-fat.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/25/health/25cnd-fat.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

2

<p>that’s like asking if a lifestyle is contagious</p>