Research News:
Fat spreads among pals, study finds
By Denise Gellene Los Angeles Times
Article Last Updated: 07/25/2007 11:58:53 PM MDT
People whose friends become obese have a greater chance of also getting too fat, a finding that suggests that obesity is "socially contagious," spreading from one person to another like a disease, according to a new study released Wednesday.
Geographic distance between friends doesn't matter - the influence of friendship is the same whether friends live next door or 500 miles away, according to the report in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The study, conducted by Dr. Nicolas Christakis of Harvard Medical School and James Fowler of the University of California, San Diego, was the first to document the spread of obesity through a social network - a pattern of contagion most often associated with infectious diseases, such as influenza and AIDS.
"People are interconnected and their health is interconnected," said Christakis, a professor of medical sociology.

The Research:
Read the research behind this story in The New England Journal of Medicine.