Overweight Young Adults and Social Clusters

Heavier young adults tend to hang out with and date other overweight people.

While this research doesn't seem to be inherently shocking, the study shows an encouraging sub-finding -- overweight young adults have more social contacts trying to lose weight, and greater intentions to lose weight.

Study author, Dr. Tricia M. Leahey, assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown Medical School, said the findings support previous research which found health behaviors, and their results, "cluster" within social networks.

The study included 151 participants of normal weight, and 137 overweight or obese men and women. Participants completed questionnaires about their weight, height, the number of overweight social contacts, and their perceived social norms for obesity and obesity-related behaviors.

Previous research from Harvard Medical School has found that a person's chance of becoming obese increases 57 percent if a friend becomes obese, 40 percent if a sibling becomes obese, and 37 percent if a spouse becomes obese.

Despite this, Leahey and her team discovered that,

If overweight young adults have more social contacts trying to lose weight, they have greater intentions to lose weight.

Why did those who had social contacts trying to lose weight say they were trying themselves to lose? Leahey says social norms for weight loss, such as encouragement from others and their approval for weight loss, account for the association.

Researchers are not sure whether overweight people seek out other overweight people, or whether normal weight people who become friends with overweight people put on weight.

Leahey suggests that it's likely both. Overweight people tend to attract one another, but she also describes the phenomenon as a social contagion.

It is somewhat encouraging to know that although people are attracted to those with similar habits, they are also the goals of friends and partners.

Leahey suggests that overweight young adults join forces with other overweight peers who are trying to lose weight.

Do you think overweight social networks have a net positive effect on weight loss efforts?

Image credit: mor10am

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