There have been a number of comments and critiques on some research coming out of the classic Framingham Heart Study on the phenomenon of "the obesity epidemic". It is certainly within the realm of social psychology that you can acquire the habits of friends by using them as your role models. The New York Times article on the topic is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/magazine/13contagion-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&em
The original article is here in full: http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/357/4/370The spread of obesity in a large social network over 32 years.by Christakis NA, and Fowler JH. In the New England Journal of Medicine.
I'm particularly interested to read: Is obesity contagious? Social networks vs. environmental factors in the obesity epidemic. by Cohen-Cole E, and Fletcher JM. from the Journal of Health Economics as it will be good for my major essay!
I must try to find some of the diagrams I saw which illustrated how the obesity clusters related to each other, linking groups of obese individuals and showing isolated slimmer ones. Grr- can't find it in my Favourites Folder now.
Try the video:
Interesting....
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