Friends and Fat
You can hardly have missed the recent discussion about your friends making you fat.
The gist of it is this: Having an obese friend greatly increases your chances for being obese, even more so than having an obese relative or spouse. If one friend begins to gain weight, then there’s a good chance the other will too. The article above chalks this up to changing norms, that is, as your friends become heavier, that body size seems more normal and acceptable.
I’m not sure I completely buy that.
Sure, if I hang out with heavy people, it seems normal to be heavy. However, I don’t think that explains why I’d gain weight. After all, I have to change my behavior to gain weight. I either eat more, exercise less, or both. No amount of changing norms will make me gain weight unless I do something different.
I think the correlation between having obese friends and being obese is relatively straightforward. How do you get to be obese? You eat more than you should and exercise less than you should. If you’re hanging out with someone who’s doing that, then what do you think you’re doing? You’re probably doing a bit of the same, aren’t you?
If you’re overweight, like me, think about what you do in your social life. Do you invite friends out for a hike or to go swimming? Or do you meet for dinner and a movie? How about date night? Is it a bike ride or a romantic movie curled up on the couch?
I think this research does illustrate how important it can be to have people around you who support your efforts to lose weight. You don’t need to get new friends, however! Make the healthy changes you need to make in your life and still enjoy your time out with friends. Maybe you can be the catalyst to start everyone off making healthier choices.
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