Not what I thought

After reading the article The Spread of Obesity in a Large Social Network over 32 Years by Christakis and Fowler, I was surprised. This article was an experiment that proved something that I had always though the exact opposite was true.  We all know that rate of obesity is growing in this world, so Christakis and Fowler did a study to figure out quantitatively how it was growing and why.

I have always thought that obesity was growing because we live in a lazy society, where technology can do mostly everything for us. I always thought of obesity being something that happens on an individual basis, based on people’s lifestyles. Some people have unfortunate genes that make them more likely to be obese. I think it is obvious that America is one of the most obese countries, which would make sense that obesity is related to geographical isolation. In poorer countries where food is limited there seems to be a lot less obese people. According to this article none of these reasons have the biggest impact on a person being obese.

Not shocking based on the topic of this class, but social ties are the biggest reason for obesity. If a person’s friend has become obese, their chance of being coming obese increases by 57%. That number is surprising. These numbers were seen among friends and family members, but not among neighbors or people in the same geographical region.

This just goes to show how much a person’s social network influences aspects of their life.  People in a social network are influenced by the behaviors and lifestyles of other members in that network. If everyone around you is obese, you have more of a change to gain weight because you probably have similar eating or exercising habits. Obesity is also more accepted in a social network of obese people. If all of the members of your social network are very skinny you will probably be self conscious of your weight and not be obese. However, if everyone is obese this will not be a concern to you and you will probably be obese too. This shows evidence that obesity is a psychosocial mechanism. The social network around you influences your physiological decisions and will either promote obesity in you or it will not be accepted. It is interesting that what actually causes obesity is not what you may typically think.