Saturday, July 28, 2007
Getting fat? It may be because of your friends
Obesity is socially contagious and the risk is highest among friends: Study

LOS ANGELES - IF YOUR friends get fat, chances are you will too, even if you live miles away from each other, researchers have found.

The study, published on Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine, suggests that obesity is 'socially contagious'.

'We were stunned to find that friends who are miles away have just as much impact on a person's weight status as friends who are right next door,' said co-author James Fowler of the University of California, San Diego.

Researchers analysed medical records of people in the Framingham Heart Study, which has been following the health of residents of that Boston suburb for more than half a century.
They tracked records for relatives and friends of nearly 12,067 people and found that a person's chances of becoming obese went up 57 per cent if a friend put on weight. If it is a sibling, the chance increased 40 per cent and if it is a spouse, it increased 37 per cent. In the closest friendships, the risk almost tripled.

After taking into account natural weight gain and other factors, researchers found the greatest influence occurred among friends and not among people sharing the same genes or living in the same household.

On average, the researchers calculated, when an obese person gained 7.7kg, the corresponding friend put on an extra 2.3kg.

Gender also had a strong influence. In same-sex friendships, a person's obesity risk increased by 71 per cent if a friend gained weight.

Dr Nicholas Christakis, a professor of medical sociology at Harvard Medical School and a principal investigator in the study, says one explanation is that friends affect each others' perception of fatness. When 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,' Prof Christakis said.

Obesity is a global public health problem. Much of the recent research focus has been on the intense hunt for obesity genes involved in appetite or calorie burning.
The findings could be helpful to treat obese people in groups instead of just the individual, researchers feel.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

I feel it’s true ….I eat lottsa cheesy -greasy food without even a trace of hesitation when I hang out with my u know, healthy (BIG) friends . But I cannot enjoy my normal course of meal while I am with skinny -dieters group. So yaa ! in this way It is contagious.

Drink More Diet Soda, Gain More Weight?

Overweight Risk Soars 41% With Each Daily Can of Diet Soft Drink
By Daniel J. DeNoon

WebMD Medical NewsReviewed by Charlotte Grayson Mathis, MDJune 13, 2005 --

People who drink diet soft drinks don't lose weight. In fact, they gain weight, a new study shows.

The findings come from eight years of data collected by Sharon P. Fowler, MPH, and colleagues at the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio. Fowler reported the data at the annual meeting of the American Diabetes Association in San Diego.

"What didn't surprise us was that total soft drink use was linked to overweight and obesity," Fowler tells WebMD. "What was surprising was when we looked at people only drinking diet soft drinks, their risk of obesity was even higher."

In fact, when the researchers took a closer look at their data, they found that nearly all the obesity risk from soft drinks came from diet sodas.

"There was a 41% increase in risk of being overweight for every can or bottle of diet soft drink a person consumes each day," Fowler says.

More Diet Drinks, More Weight Gain
Fowler's team looked at seven to eight years of data on 1,550 Mexican-American and non-Hispanic white Americans aged 25 to 64. Of the 622 study participants who were of normal weight at the beginning of the study, about a third became overweight or obese.

For regular soft-drink drinkers, the risk of becoming overweight or obese was:

26% for up to 1/2 can each day
30.4% for 1/2 to one can each day
32.8% for 1 to 2 cans each day
47.2% for more than 2 cans each day.
For diet soft-drink drinkers, the risk of becoming overweight or obese was:

36.5% for up to 1/2 can each day
37.5% for 1/2 to one can each day
54.5% for 1 to 2 cans each day
57.1% for more than 2 cans each day.
For each can of diet soft drink consumed each day, a person's risk of obesity went up 41%.

Diet Soda No Smoking Gun
Fowler is quick to note that a study of this kind does not prove that diet soda causes obesity. More likely, she says, it shows that something linked to diet soda drinking is also linked to obesity.

"One possible part of the explanation is that people who see they are beginning to gain weight may be more likely to switch from regular to diet soda," Fowler suggests. "But despite their switching, their weight may continue to grow for other reasons. So diet soft-drink use is a marker for overweight and obesity."

Why? Nutrition expert Leslie Bonci, MPH, RD, puts it in a nutshell.

"You have to look at what's on your plate, not just what's in your glass," Bonci tells WebMD.

People often mistake diet drinks for diets, says Bonci, director of sports nutrition at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and nutrition consultant to college and professional sports teams and to the Pittsburgh Ballet.

"A lot of people say, 'I am drinking a diet soft drink because that is better for me. But soft drinks by themselves are not the root of America's obesity problem," she says. "You can't go into a fast-food restaurant and say, 'Oh, it's OK because I had diet soda.' If you don't do anything else but switch to a diet soft drink, you are not going to lose weight."

The Mad Hatter Theory
"Take some more tea," the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.
"I've had nothing yet," Alice replied in an offended tone, "so I can't take more."
"You mean you can't take less," said the Hatter: "It's very easy to take more than nothing." Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

There is actually a way that diet drinks could contribute to weight gain, Fowler suggests.

She remembers being struck by the scene in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in which Alice is offended because she is offered tea but is given none -- even though she hadn't asked for tea in the first place. So she helps herself to tea and bread and butter.

That may be just what happens when we offer our bodies the sweet taste of diet drinks, but give them no calories. Fowler points to a recent study in which feeding artificial sweeteners to rat pups made them crave more calories than animals fed real sugar.

"If you offer your body something that tastes like a lot of calories, but it isn't there, your body is alerted to the possibility that there is something there and it will search for the calories promised but not delivered," Fowler says.

Perhaps, Bonci says, our bodies are smarter than we think.

"People think they can just fool the body. But maybe the body isn't fooled," she says. "If you are not giving your body those calories you promised it, maybe your body will retaliate by wanting more calories. Some soft drink studies do suggest that diet drinks stimulate appetite."

More Diet Drinks, More Weight Gain

really! I love diet soda ...I thought it has zero calory.

same here tiru

The proponents of Diet Soda were raising questions like -

How can diet drinks with 99% water and some artificial sweeteners and flavors can increase weight ?

Yaa Exactly. How?

ya how?

Zero calorie maybe but whatever you eat has to turn into something. There are ingredients in diet coke that turn into fat. That's what COKE and PEPSI doesn't want you to know. There are some ingredients which don't even leave your system for few years. Stick to plain water or fresh fruit drinks without additives.

Drinkin diet sodas for yrs, now i feel so cheated.

7 Thoughts That Can Make You Thin

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Transform your negative thoughts, and think yourself thin in just seven steps!
By Cara Birnbaum for O, The Oprah Magazine , December 2005

Find More

Simple Ways to Eat Smart
Bob Greene's Best Life Diet
The Dr. Oz Diet

You know those suggestive little voices that whisper in your ear... and suddenly you're knee-deep in ice cream? Change the sabotaging, discipline-destroying thoughts, and you can change your life—or at least your weight.

I ordered the grilled cheese, so why not get the fries, too?

One treat at a time. I'm indulging in grilled cheese, so I'll trade the fries for a salad.

Here's How: "The thought pattern is, I've already blown it for today, so I might as well keep going," says Janet Polivy, PhD, a psychology professor at the University of Toronto. She calls it the "what the hell" effect and says it causes people to devour so much food that they feel they'll never get back on track. To prevent this scenario from playing over and over, Polivy says, you have to redefine your idea of healthy eating. Allow yourself the occasional treat, as long as it's accompanied by smarter food choices like fresh fruit and vegetables. At roughly 500 calories, one melted cheddar on rye a week should hardly make you fat. Habitually tacking on a large order of fries, however, might.

I'll just have this one cookie.

If I can't stop at one or two cookies, I shouldn't have any at all.

Here's How: We stand by the above tip that it's okay to eat your favorite foods, provided you're the type who can stop after a small amount. "One cookie could turn into 1,000 calories or more if you proceed to eat the whole bag," warns Stephen Gullo, PhD, president of the Institute for Health and Weight Sciences. He suggests that you take a step back and honestly assess how you've reacted to your favorite foods in the past. You may discover that chocolate chip cookies trigger uncontrollable cravings but one square of dark chocolate appeases your sweet tooth quite nicely.

My husband says I look fat, so I guess I should start exercising.

I want to get in shape for myself, not for him.

Here's How: Whether or not you need to shed a few pounds, acting in response to someone else's hurtful remarks will breed self-doubt and lower your self-esteem, says Marlene Schwartz, PhD, co-director of the Yale Center for Eating and Weight Disorders in New Haven, Connecticut. To reset your weight loss goals so they revolve solely around you, sit down and figure out how you could benefit from changing your lifestyle. (Writing your thoughts out on paper might help.) If you identify areas that need improvement, talk to your spouse about how he can play a part: Plan low-fat weekly menus together in lieu of eating out, or take walks after dinner instead of watching TV. Alternatively, if you're exercising, eating right, and feeling pretty healthy the way you are, Schwartz says, "tell him that this is his problem, not yours."

What's the point of losing weight during the winter? I'll get in shape come summer.

By eating more now, I'm creating a lot of extra work for myself when spring rolls around.

Here's How: A study by scientists at the National Institutes of Health tracked 195 people through the holidays and found an average weight gain of about a pound.

By the following year, most had gained another half pound, and the researchers predicted that the trend would only continue. To prevent this outward creep, Gullo says, keep thoughts of summer in your house all year long by hanging a bikini or skimpy sundress on the back of the bathroom door, and visualize yourself wearing it every time you head for the leftovers. He also proposes committing to a regular exercise program in the fall, "before the winter blahs set in," because lugging last night's comfort food through an hour-long spinning class isn't so comfortable.

Fat runs in my family, so why bother exercising?

I can't change my DNA, but I can change my fate.

Here's How: "Genetics helps determine your natural weight range, but you have some control over where you fall within that range," says Edward Abramson, PhD, an expert on obesity, dieting, and weight disorders and the author of Body Intelligence. Rather than aiming for a size 2, aim for health: If being overweight is a family trait, diabetes, heart disease, and other obesity-related illnesses could be, too, Schwartz says. Walk to the grocery store, choose the stairs over the escalator, and take good care of the body you were born with. "It's important to distinguish between body size and body health," she says. "Research shows that people who are overweight and physically fit can live longer than people who are ideal weight and not physically fit."

After that grueling workout, I deserve a bacon double cheeseburger.

After busting my butt at the gym, my body deserves the VIP treatment.

Here's How: "Most people overestimate the number of calories they've burned," says Brian Wansink, PhD, a professor of marketing, applied economics, and nutritional science at Cornell University and author of Marketing Nutrition. To burn off a bacon double cheeseburger, the average 140-pound woman has to jog at a rate of five miles per hour for more than 60 minutes. Recast your concept of reward: Instead of seeking food, take a luxurious bubble bath, rent a guilty-pleasure movie, buy a new pair of shoes, or lose yourself in a good novel.

I'll grab a candy bar to get me through my mid afternoon slump.

When my energy flags, I need food that will help me go the distance.

Here's How: Candy and other sweets have little nutritional value, and they destabilize blood sugar, causing you to have more cravings later on, Gullo says. To head off a snack attack, he suggests, "reprogram yourself to seek out a mini-meal 30 minutes before you usually hit a slump." By eating before you're famished, you should be able to resist the sweet stuff and choose foods with enough protein, fat, and complex carbs to keep you sated and energized until dinner. Some of Gullo's top picks: bran crackers with low-fat cheese, a hard-boiled egg, or a cup of low-fat yogurt.

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