Could your social network be causing you to gain weight

Can your friends, if they have weight issues, trigger your own weight gain ?

A study of more than 12,000 people published in a recent New England Journal of Medicine makes "yes" a convincing answer.

Before this study I believed that if friends and family were involved in a relative's or a friend's weight gain -- or inability to lose weight for that matter -- they were probably "saboteurs." Meaning, for personal reasons (jealousy or fear, perhaps) they consciously or subconsciously sabotage their friend's food plan.

Here's how a saboteur works: At the end of lunch your friend says, "Let's split a piece of cake. It'll be half the calories, and you can do that, can't you " Seems harmless, so even though cake's not in your food plan, you go for it. You've just been sabotaged.

However, this study was not about saboteurs, or genes, or how the majority in the study became friends at a smoking cessation clinic. No. This study identified how social networks cause normal folks to gain weight. And, by extrapolation, believe those social networks play a significant role in America's growing weight problem.

Researcher's learned that "A person's chances of becoming obese increased by 57 percent … if he or she had a friend who became obese in a given interval." And, that friend didn't have to live next door; he could live hundreds of miles away. So, friends hanging out together, with one enticing the other into consuming more calories than normal isn't it either.

Researchers uncovered what seems to be a natural, social, very human phenomenon. It's really about what folks accept as normal. If your friend gains weight and you respect them, as most friends do, the normal friend more than half the time emulates them and is very likely headed toward a larger dress size or bigger pants.

Over time, it seems, you accept your friend's larger body size as normal, and then accept the idea that it's OK for you to be a larger body size as well. Sort of the "I'm OK, you're OK" concept in reverse.

Researchers also found that gender plays a role. Women influence women, and men influence men far more than women or men influence the opposite sex.

This social network effect snowballs: as more folks become overweight, they make new friendships and the process begins anew. You may see, then, that what may have started with a few could easily and fairly quickly grow into something far larger -- numerous Americans getting heavier.

Researchers also believe that social networks can work just as well in the opposite direction. Having a normal-weight friend or a relative can head your above-normal weight downward.

But don't go and dump your overweight friend and seek new, normal-weight friends. It's possible if you and your friend have weight issues, to address those issues together and move toward slimmer yous.

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