Posted on August 1, 2007 in Lastest News
“Obesity is socially contagious, and spreads through social ties, especially your family and friends”, says Harvard researchers in the New England Journal of Medicine.
“This reinforces the idea that because people are interconnected, their health is interconnected,” said the author of the study Dr. Nicholas A. Christakis, professor at Harvard University. “It takes seriously the embedded-ness of people within social networks and gives new meaning to the concept of public health.”
Though this research study may make people to look differently at their friends and family members, the research is meant at pointing new ways to combat the obesity epidemic.
“This is a fascinating way to look at the problem, and it may be a very good reason why treatments have been so difficult, because we’re only addressing one member of the network”, says Dr. Julio Licinio, chairman of the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.
This study suggests that weight gain in one person may encourage weight gain in others. Having social contacts with obese may cause one to adopt certain behaviors. Sometimes even other people’s behaviors stimulate certain parts of your brain, especially those related to eating food.
There is more research need to be done on this aspect. But it suggests that, to treat obesity effectively, you need to treat not just the person but also his/her social network.
Source: medlineplus.gov
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