Better Health & Living: Article: Fat Is Contagious?!

Issue: July 2008

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Fat Is Contagious?!

You're more than 50 percent more likely to be fat if your friends are.

by Amy Miller

Published in METRO •METRO Story •weight_loss | 0 Comments, Talk about this article »

When Rita Laffey and her best friends go out for “girls’ night” dinners once a month, they sometimes order so much they joke that they could be food critics. “We are a bad influence on each other because we would never order that much if we were dining with our spouses,” admits the Chicago accountant.

Binges are no laughing matter, though, for Nicholas Christakis, MD, of Harvard Medical School, and James Fowler, PhD, of the University of California, San Diego. They’re the authors of a study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, that says bad eating habits can spread from person to person like the flu. Even more surprising, gluttony is more likely to spread among friends, not family members or coworkers.

Your odds of becoming obese go up by 57 percent if you have a pal who is obese. Among mutual friends, the effect balloons, with chances increasing by 171 percent. In other words, bad habits are contagious, even among pals who live thousands of miles from each other. “It’s not that obese or non-obese people simply find other similar people to hang out with,” Dr. Christakis says. “Rather, there is a direct causal relationship.”

Ouch! That puts a grim spin on friendship. But if you’re determined to eat smarter, get thinner, and live longer, do you have to lose your chubby pals’ phone numbers? Not necessarily, say experts. Here’s how to inoculate yourself against the “fat” virus—without ruining your social life.

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Turn Friends Into Weight-loss Allies

Unless your friends are active diet saboteurs (in which case, they’re not really friends), they may not realize you want to lose weight and get healthy. Actively enlisting them in your weight-loss efforts could be the boost of encouragement you need, says Beth Kitchin, RD, assistant professor of nutrition sciences at the University of Alabama. “Let them know when you have dropped a few pounds and let them be your cheerleaders,” she says. And ask them to stop sending you their favorite fattening recipes, suggests Laffey. “My friends and I are famous for swapping family recipes, and they are never low fat or good for you. When I see an e-mail that has ‘bacon-onion tart’ in the subject line, I know I should just delete it.”

Celebrate Without Food

Just got a raise? Your pals are thrilled—and they want to take you out to celebrate. Unfortunately, when the group’s in a great mood, they’re 86 percent more likely to choose “immediate gratification” foods such as pizza and french fries over healthy choices such as salads, says Cornell University nutrition expert Brian Wansink, PhD, author of Mindless Eating. Your odds of overeating also go up with each person you share a meal with (chowing down with seven or more people will make you eat a whopping 96 percent more than you would alone!). But don’t worry; you don’t have to celebrate solo. A better bet is to ask pals to treat you to a day at a spa, a ball game, or a night out at the movies (and hold the popcorn and candy).

Bad eating habits can spread from person to person like the flu.

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Turn To Your Spouse When You’re Stressed

While your friends don’t cause stress, most people turn to close buddies first when they get bad news or feel down. That can trigger unhealthy eating, says Elissa S. Epel, PhD, director of research at the Center for Obesity Assessment, Study, and Treatment at the University of California, San Francisco. Her research suggests that not only do many people overeat when stressed, they turn to high-calorie foods. “Chronic stress can also lead to more abdominal fat, less lean muscle mass, and insulin resistance,” she says. Friends can compound the problem because they exert more influence on eating habits than spouses or family members.

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Cultivate New Friends

OK, you’ll always stay loyal to your old circle of friends, just as you’ll never throw away your old college sweatshirt and bell-bottom jeans. But that doesn’t mean your wardrobe and your social life couldn’t use some updating. Thin, healthy friends will influence your weight just as much as obese ones, and you can even find the encouragement you need online. A handful of studies suggest that online diet programs such as Weight Watchers can be effective because they offer social support. Best of all, just having thin friends could lead to weight loss. “In our study, weight loss spread like weight gain,” says Dr. Christakis. “The point is to eat healthier and encourage others to do the same.”

Amy Miller is a freelance writer in New York.