Find Yourself Packing It on?Blame Friends
Obesity call spread from person to person,much like a virus,researchers are reporting one person gains weight,close friends tend to gain weight,too.
Their study,published in The New England Journal of Medicine,involved a detailed analysis of a large social network of 12,067 people who were been closely followed for 32 years,from 1971 to 2003.
The investigators knew who were friends with whom as well as who was a spouse or sibling or neighbor,and they knew how much each person weighed at various times over three decades. That let them reconstruct what happened over the years as individuals became their friends also become obese?Did family members?Or neighbors?
The answer,the researchers report,was that people were most likely to become obese when a friend became increased a person's chances of becoming obese by 57 e was no effect when a neighbor gained or lost weight,however,and family members had less influence than friends.
It did not even matter if the friend was hundreds of miles away,the influence remained. And the greatest influence of all was between close mutual e,if one became obese. the other had a 171 percent increased chance of becoming .
The same effect seemed to occur for weight loss,the investigators since most people were gaining,not losing,over the 32 years,me result was,on average,that people grew fatter.
olas stakis,a physician and professor of medical sociology at Harvard Medical School and a principal investigator in the new study,said one explanation was that friends affected each others’perception of a close friend becomes obese,obesity may not look so bad.
"You change your idea of what is an acceptable body type by looking at the people around you."stakis said.
The investigators say their findings can help explain why Americans have become fatter in recent years—each person who became obese was likely to drag along some friends.
Their analysis was unique,stakis said,because it moved beyond a simple analysis of one person and his or her social contacts and instead examined all entire social network alonce,looking at how a person’s friend’s friends,or a spouse’s sibling’s d have aIl influence on a person’s weight.
The effects,he said,"highlight the importance of a spreading process.a kind of social contagion,that spreads through the network."of course,the investigators al networks are not the only factors that affect body e is a strong genetic component at work,too.
Science has shown that individuals have genetically determined ranges of weights,spanning perhaps 30 0r so pounds for each that leaves a large role for the environment in determining whether a person’s weight is near the top of his or her range or near the people have gotten fatter,it appears that many are edging toward the top of their question has been why.
If the new research is correct,it may say that something in the environment seeded what some call an obesity epidemic,making a few people gain social networks let the obesity spread rapidly.
had the greatest influence on people who became obese?
r friends.
r neighbors.
r family members.
r colleagues.
12、Which of the following statement about a friend’s influence is false according to the report?
nds had more influence than family members on people who became obese.
if the friend lives far away,the influence still remained.
le were not likely to lose weight when they have skinny friends.
greatest influence of all was between close mutual friends.
13、According to olas A,Christakis,what is the explanation for friends being the greatest influence?
nds usually spend a lot of time together.
nds share similar eating habits.
nds are more important than family members.
nds affected each others’feelings of fatness.
14、Which factor of becoming obese is not mentioned in this report?
al contact.
tic information.
style.
ronmental influences.
15、In what way is obesity contagious and epidemic?
al networks let the obesity spread rapidly.
B.1ndividuals have genetically determined ranges of weights.
ity can easily spread from one to another without any physical contact.
ity can spread rapidly and extensively by infection and affecting many individuals in an area or a population at the same time.
答案：11.A 12.C 13.D 14.C 15.A
