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July 12th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda THURSDAY, July 12 (HealthDay News) — Worried about the battle of
the bulge? Your circle of friends might be key to your weight gain, a new
study suggests.
The research, conducted among high school students, found that teens
were more likely to pile on the pounds if they hung out with people who
were already heavier than they were. The opposite was true for students
whose friends were thinner, however.
The researchers say the findings might help experts combat obesity, at
least among teenagers.
“These results can help us develop better interventions to prevent
obesity. We should not be treating adolescents in isolation,” study author
David Shoham, an assistant professor in the department of preventive
medicine and epidemiology of Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of
Medicine, said in a Loyola news release.
In conducting the observational study, the researchers were trying to
figure out if obesity clusters in groups of friends due to social
influences (when friends influence one another) or if people simply seek
out the friendship of people who are most similar to themselves, including
weight status.
To answer this question, the researchers examined information
previously collected from students at two large high schools over the
course of two school years. One school, known as Jefferson High, was
located in a rural area and had a mostly white student population. The
second school, called Sunshine High, was located in a city and had a more
racial and ethnically diverse student body.
The researchers applied a statistical technique to analyze survey
responses from more than 600 students from Jefferson High and 1,151
students from Sunshine High. The teens were asked about their weight,
friends, sports and the amount of time they spent in front of the TV or
computer or playing video games. The researchers also calculated the
students’ body mass index (a measure of height and weight).
The way that students initially chose their friends did play a role in
how obesity clustered within social groupings. The researchers pointed
out, however, that even after taking this finding into account there was
still a significant link between obesity and a student’s circle of
friends, suggesting that friend-to-friend influences might also be
key.
For example, a Jefferson High student with thin friends had a 40
percent chance of losing weight and a 27 percent chance of gaining weight.
On the other hand, the researchers found a student who was close to being
overweight and had obese friends had only a 15 percent chance of losing
weight but a 56 percent chance of gaining more weight.
The bottom line: A person’s social networks must be taken into
consideration when developing strategies to prevent or treat obesity among
teenagers, the researchers said.
Shoham’s team said the study was limited by its reliance on
self-reported data and the inability to directly test how friendships are
formed and maintained. They added that the study’s data were also
collected more than a decade ago — before the advent of Facebook and the
sharp rise in rates of childhood obesity.
Since it is observational in nature, the study can only show an
association between friends and weight gain; it cannot prove a
cause-and-effect relationship. And, “of course, no one study should ever
be taken as conclusive and our future work will attempt to address many of
these limitations,” Shoham said.
The study was published recently in the journal PLoS ONE.
More information
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides more
information on obesity.
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