fatness is contagious

snagglepuss · #1 07-26-2007, 03:32 PM

i just saw a blurb on cnn about fat people being contagious.

apparently 57% more likely if good friends with a fat person.

any truth to this? is it just a byproduct of the fact that fat people are more likely to congregate among themselves to begin with because they have similar fat lifestyles?

here is the first story i found while googling

what other personality or lifestyle traits would translate in the same manner, assuming this research is relatively correct?

being a douchebag? being funny? being intelligent?

amplify · #2 07-26-2007, 03:35 PM

I dunno, my friends are all intelligent, rich, thin, young, scoring major tail and writing brilliant posts.

traz · #3 07-26-2007, 03:38 PM

like attracts like

Pudge714 · #4 07-26-2007, 03:39 PM

It's a correlated not contagious. People in good/bad shape participate in activities which cause them to be in good/bad shape. People are likely to be friends with people who participate in the same activities.

XXXNoahXXX · #5 07-26-2007, 03:40 PM

Hi.

John Spartan · #6 07-26-2007, 03:40 PM

[ QUOTE ]
like attracts like

[/ QUOTE ]

bingo. people who do team sports together tend to take better care of themselves, for example

suzzer99 · #7 07-26-2007, 03:40 PM

I just got back from my 20 year reunion in Missouri. In California I am fat. In MO I'm doing better than most of my classmates - esp. compared to where they were in HS. If I lived back there I would probably have no incentive to try to lose weight and weigh 400 lbs.

iron81 · #8 07-26-2007, 03:40 PM

[ QUOTE ]
like attracts like

[/ QUOTE ]
They tried to eliminate this by excluding people from the study where both friends started out fat.

traz · #9 07-26-2007, 03:41 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
like attracts like

[/ QUOTE ]
They tried to eliminate this by excluding people from the study where both friends started out fat.

[/ QUOTE ]

Even so, they'll start to influence each other. If you're good friends with someone who sits around eating pizza all day, there's a damn good chance you're gonna end up sitting around eating pizza all day.

Contagious definitely is not the right word

guids · #10 07-26-2007, 03:41 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
like attracts like

[/ QUOTE ]

bingo. people who do team sports together tend to take better care of themselves, for example

[/ QUOTE ]

ya, because the correlation of being on a sports team isnt the reason they take care of each other, its gotta be just the fact that they hang out all the time.

Im not disagreeing with the op, but that is some [censored] logic.