Word: fowlerize
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Researchers believe that the study’s results help explain a dramatic increase in obesity within the past 30 years, according to study co-author James H. Fowler...
...just that people who share similar lifestyles become friends, Fowler says. He and co-author Nicholas Christakis of Harvard Medical School considered the possibility - and were surprised. For one thing, geographic distance between friends in the study seemed to have no impact: friends who lived a 5-hour drive apart and saw each other infrequently were just as influenced by each other's weight gains as those who lived close enough to share weekly take-out meals or pick-up basketball games. The best proof that friendship caused the weight gain, says Fowler, is that people were much more likely...
...obvious question is, Why? Spouses share meals and a backyard, but the researchers found a much smaller risk of gaining weight - a 37% increase - when one spouse became obese. Siblings share genes, but their influence, too, was much smaller, increasing each other's risk 40%. Fowler believes the effect has much more to do with social norms: whom we look to when considering appropriate social behavior. Having fat friends makes being fat seem more acceptable. "Your spouse may not be the person you look to when you're deciding what kind of body image is appropriate, how much...
...Fowler and Christakis say that the contagion effect should hold just as much for weight loss as it does for weight gain. "I would hope this influences individuals to get friends and families involved in decisions about health," Fowler says. After all, he says, a weight-loss plan may be more effective if the people closest to you are on board. And, if you're successful, your good health will help others achieve a healthy weight too. The impact extends not just to your friends, it turns out - but also to your friends' friends, and even to their friends. Fowler...
...going to be acting with our hands behind our backs." Most people recognize that smoking behavior and drinking behavior are influenced by group standards. But such thinking is relatively new for obesity, still so often thought of as an individual's moral failing or clinical condition. Next up for Fowler and Christakis's consideration: how a social network can influence an individual event - like a heart attack. "There are all kinds of processes," says Fowler, "and we'd like to know whether they spread like this...