OPINION: My Tight Pants? My Friends’ Fault
By Elmer Smith, Philadelphia Daily News
Jul. 27–DOES THIS FRIEND make my butt look big?
No, really. I’ve found solid scientific evidence that the inexorable expansion of my, uh, southern sector can be blamed on the company I keep.
I wouldn’t have believed it either. But I read the data myself in the latest edition of the New England Journal of Medicine. It was in the table of contents between “Toxicity of Rofecoxib in Colorectal Cancer and “Partial Thrombosis of the False Lumens in Type B. Aortic Disconnection”
I had actually dropped my subscription to the journal after reading dozens of doomsday alerts about stuff that causes cancer in rats. I don’t need a scientist to tell me that critters who live in labs have a higher risk for cancer.
But this “friends make us fat” study has the ring of truth. I knew it wasn’t my fault.
But whom should I blame?
Everybody.
From my mother, who sealed my fate with her sweet-potato pies, to the little terrorist tots who plied me with confections when I was too innocent to see their evil scheme. None are faultless.
I know what you’re thinking. Birds of a feather grow fat together. People who enjoy tofu will find each other in a crowd whereas the big-boned among us seem to end up in the same social circles.
Well, tell that to Nicholas A. Christakis, M.D., Ph.D, M.P.H., and James H. Fowler, Ph.D. They are the authors of “The Spread of Obesity in a Large Social Network over 32 Years.”
They spent 32 years analyzing a “densely interconnected social network of 12,067 people. They used longitudinal statistical models to examine whether weight gain in one person was associated with weight gain in his friends, siblings, spouse and neighbors.
They found that the “discernible clusters” of obese people they studied “did not appear to be solely attributable to to the selective formation of social ties among obese persons.” In short, this is not about people who just get together to shop the husky racks.
Apparently there is some mystical means of transmission that dooms us to a similar fate even if we move apart and don’t see each other for years.
“Network phenomena,” they conclude, “appear to be relevant to the biologic and behavioral trait obesity and obesity appears to spread through social ties.”
Here’s how it works: “Having obese social contacts might change a person’s tolerance for being obese or influence one’s adoption of specific behaviors.” Then there is what they call “physiological imitation.” Even “infectious causes” of obesity are conceivable, according to the good doctors.
Your chance of becoming obese increases by 57 percent if you have a friend who becomes obese in a given interval. If your brother gets fat, you are 40 percent more likely to get fat. If it’s your spouse gets fat, it increases your chance of getting fat by 37 percent.
“These findings,” they say, “have implications for clinical and public health interventions.”
They should also have implications for how you choose your friends. You should not be hanging with anybody whose body-mass index is suspect. If your friends are not willing to divide their weight in kilograms by the square of their height in meters and share that data with you, they’re not your friends.
Look back over their menu choices. If the ratio of chicken wings to celery stalks is more than 3-1, cut them off. Now!
I don’t care if she was the maid of honor at your wedding or if he risked his life rushing into a burning building to pull you to safety. If they’re really friends, they’ll understand.
It’s just common sense. Look at how much slimmer Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling and Oprah Winfrey are now that they are billionaires. Yes, they have personal chefs and home gyms.
But I’ll bet you a plate of spareribs they aren’t still hanging out with their old fat friends.
Send e-mail to smithel@phillynews.com or call 215-854-2512. For recent columns: http://go.philly.com/smith
—–
To see more of the Philadelphia Daily News, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.philly.com.
Copyright (c) 2007, Philadelphia Daily News
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.