Tell Me Who Your Friends Are and I Will Tell You if You Are Getting Fat

Ever heard of synchronized menstruation? It’s when women living together for a long period of time have their menstruation almost at the same time. What does menstruation has to do with your weight? It’s this synchronization that seems to be also getting noticed when it comes to people who are often together. Something like synchronized weight gain?

This came into my attention after reading this article from Jonathan Lapook asking if obesity is contagious.

Jonathan mentioned about this research, Framingham Heart Study, suggesting that a person’s weight can be adopted by other people he or she is often with.

And social closeness is much more important than geographic closeness. There was no effect for next door neighbors who weren’t friends. But a friend 1,000 miles away influences you as much as a friend next door.

One of the most surprising findings was that the effect extends out three levels of friendship. Not only are you affected by your friend, but by your friend’s friend and your friend’s friend’s friend. If everybody is connected by six degrees of separation, think how many people might be influenced by three degrees of separation!

This does not surprise me at all since I have always understood that the very essence of friendships is feeling and making someone feel the sense of belongingness. And if one part of a group gains some weight, it’s not impossible for the rest to just jump into the bandwagon of weight gain. This is especially true if the person who gains weight is the leader of the group or the bossy one who often sets the trend, as many friendships have hierarchies, too.

Regarding the proximity of a friend who’s become obese still influencing someone to gain weight, too, again, friendship has knows no boundaries.

This just means that we really ought to be aware of whatever we are doing to ourselves since we’ll never know how much it can impact our friends’ figures, er relationships.

[image from SarahandMichael]

Tags: weight gain, friends, obesity