Do you find it hard to lose weight because your friends are fat or because you can’t say no to calories? Are you just slim and lean because you have dedicated times for your sports and workout? Scientific community comes up with loads of new ways every day to ease and shape up the human life. This time they’ve come up with a fact that most of us can easily understand and relate to, “Having obese friends can actually make you gain weight”.
There had been researches and hypotheses in the past but none were able to be proved to the extent to be considered. However this time, researchers at Loyola University had carried out a deep and thorough study and conducted their tests on two groups of students. Students who are friends with people who had frequent eating habits tend to be fat. The converse for this holds true too. If your group is all slim and lean, then you are less likely to gain weight or at a relatively slow pace.
Both groups of students were examined and studied for a time span of 2 years and their habits were comprehensively analyzed. These habits included their weight, friendships, sports and the time given by each to television and computer. The body mass index of these students was calculated simultaneously. The study that was published in the journal PLoS ONE showed that having obese friends can actually make you gain weight. This was contributed to the fact that hanging out with fat folks would result in acquisition of their habits that brought them to this stage. It also suggested that when eating with such friends, it’s hard to say no to food and just sit there while they fill their appetite.
The study also suggests that lifestyle and habits of one’s particular friends affect deeply the way he/she spend their life. The study suggests that it can impact as far as your direct and indirect decision making capability. Direct implies asking someone to go accompany to gym or some sporty or healthy activity, maybe even a deep bowl of French fries rich in fats. Indirect can relate to making a decision that has an influence on you. Such a matter includes being the only fat, or chubby, guy/gal in the group thinking of losing weight in order to fit in or joining a sport just because your group plays it. However the researchers were amazed to find that women’s weight didn’t seem to increase just because they have obese friends.
Obesity and thinness are considered to be socially contagious that can spread like epidemics and can deeply influence in one’s friends or family members. A study suggests that having obese friends or family members can increase your chances of gaining weight to over 50%!