Word: weight
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...telling was the passage of what was widely viewed as one of the most important pieces of legislation to be put forward in several decades of reform: the revised law on property ownership. Pushed through despite objections from old-line conservatives, the law for the first time gave equal weight to both state- and private-ownership rights. But a look at the fine print shows that the law only protects things dear to the rising middle class: real estate, cars, stock-market assets. Farmers, on the other hand, will still be unable to purchase their land and instead will...
...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 to pattern their own behavior on the actions of people they considered friends...
...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...
...policy analysts, then, the lesson is that public-health interventions may well be far more cost-effective than previously acknowledged. Helping one person lose weight can have a snowball effect through an entire social network, affecting social norms among the target person's friends and acquaintances. "There's been a lot of talk about limiting portion size, getting rid of vending machines in schools," says Thomas Sander, a civic-engagement specialist at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, not involved in the research. Those interventions may be useful, he says. "This study suggests that if we're fighting...