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By Matthew Rees

Food and Health Fact #48: Obesity as a social contagion

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Is obesity contagious? A Yale professor, Nicholas Christakis, analyzed 32 years of data (spanning from 1971-2003), which was drawn from more than 12,000 people in Framingham, Massachusetts. His findings, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, revealed how the presence of obesity in one person increased the likelihood of another person becoming obese. The increased likelihood for different groups was as follows:

• Spouses: 37 percent

• Friendships among women: 38 percent

• Brothers: 44 percent

• Sisters: 67 percent

• Friendships among men: 100 percent

• Close friends: 171 percent