Better Health & Living: Article: Friends Don't Let Friends Get Fat

Issue: July 2008

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Friends Don’t Let Friends Get Fat

A dear friend of mine recently led me down the garden path

by Susan Flagg Godbey

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A dear friend of mine recently led me down the garden path. What started out as a champagne celebration of her recent career accomplishment ended up with us making s’mores in her fireplace. That was our dinner.

With friends like this, I’ll soon be back in the “big me” section of my closet again. I’d like to think it was all her fault, but I was of sound mind when she suggested we pick up the ingredients and quite conscious as we built the fire. So I’m left with a case of s’mores remorse as I try to understand just what came over me that day.

As the experts tell us in this issue’s feature Fat is Contagious?! the company you keep does have an effect on your waistline. And there’s an even stranger twist: Researchers are finding that even your long-distance friends may have a greater influence on your weight than your grandmom’s Sunday dessert. What gives?

When researchers examined evidence from the Framingham Heart Study--a 32-year look at the lifestyle habits of more than 12,000 people living in the same town--they found that when one friend gained weight, other pals were likely to follow suit. The reason? Researchers speculate that once your friend is wearing an almost fashionable size 18--or whipping up s’mores in the fireplace--it changes your perception of an acceptable size and appropriate eating behavior.

No way are we going to advise dropping your pals, though. In many ways, they’re as crucial to your health as maintaining a reasonable weight. In considering the whole food/friendship issue as it relates to my s’mores-and-bubbly debacle, I now think my friend might have been grateful if I had stopped to question the sanity of that idea given that we’re both watching--and complaining about--our weight. I think I have to work on being a better friend.

‘Til next time,
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Susan Flagg Godbey