with friends like these...

[arguchik]

scratch that previous post (little lolcat pun there). it's neither diet nor regular soda that causes obesity. it's your friends and family.

:::yawn:::

if they ever settle this question, wake me up, ok?

i don't mean to sound all disdainful, but...like...duh. eating is a social activity. if you eat with your family and friends, you will probably be following similar eating patterns in terms of what, how much, and how often you eat. for example, my mother found it impossible to lose weight when she had teenagers living at home. why? because teenagers eat garbage, and they eat a lot of it. our house was always full of soda, chips, cookies, sugary cereal, ice cream, etc.--even if my mom didn't buy it, the shit was always around because we would buy it, and we were constantly snacking on it. once i was in college (i'm the youngest) and started eating with my friends more, and also started eating more healty stuff, my mom found it easier to lose weight.

added later:
but what i really find annoying about all of this is the normative, fear-mongering rhetoric. the NYT article i linked to above actually compares obesity to a virus. it's a contagion, so...like...if you know any fat people, you'd better quarantine yourself so you don't catch it!

gah! our culture already valorizes thin bodies and marginalizes (understatement!) heavier bodies. do we really need to heap more freight onto that dichotomy?

Comments

WTF

[superannuated1l.livejournal.com]

My family members are fat because we share the same fucking genes. My friends are disproportionately likely to be fat for three reasons:

1) A lot of thin people are abusive and shitty toward fat people, and that's really not what I'm looking for in a friendship, thanks.

2) The eating-disordered subset of thin people tend to be almost visibly distressed by fat people, and therefore they don't want to be friends with me.

3) As a fellow fat person, I'm less likely to judge other fat people, and more likely to reach out to them socially. We have something in common.

But yeah, social contagion, lock up the fat people. Boo!

Re: WTF

[arguchik.livejournal.com]

yeah...all of that. "research" like this makes me crazy. they basically manipulated data from another study to come up with this result--i.e. they reconfigured existing data from a study that was designed to measure something else, ran their statistical analysis, and came up with this conclusion. and of course the press gets hold of it and says, "if you're fat, blame your friends and family." the implication, of course, is that someone deserves to be blamed for something.

nevermind all of the research that shows how difficult it is to modify one's body type, beyond a certain range--regardless of how many calories one consumes. what that "set point" is, and how much it will flex, varies tremendously from person to person.

[wondrousbeauty.livejournal.com]

One merit of the article is that it recognizes that habits/commitments are better kept when you feel like you've got company (for instance, a friend who also jogs so you either jog together or talk about jogging). It's not necessarily surprising, because as you said, eating is a social activity in many ways, that people form habits similar to the folks around them--but making this explicit does add some motivation to join some sort of fitness/exercise group (as opposed to trying to go it alone).

Of course, there is the other side of it, which is that you will feel ridiculed or uncomfortably conspicuous in a group setting (regardless of body type)....

[arguchik.livejournal.com]

yes, but then there's this part:

It may also mean that the way to avoid becoming fat is to avoid having fat friends.

That is not the message they mean to convey, say the study investigators, Dr. Christakis and his colleague, James H. Fowler, an associate professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego.

You do not want to lose a friend who becomes obese, Dr. Christakis said. Friends are good for your overall health, he explained. So why not make friends with a thin person, he suggested, and let the thin person’s behavior influence you and your obese friend?

i find that last paragraph particularly disturbing... it's very much like the advice given to women, that "it's just as easy to fall in love with a rich man, as it is with a poor man." um...how about choosing friends and falling in love with people you respect, and who respect you?

[(Anonymous)]

I think the point about giving up existing friends is way off...getting a "fitness buddy" (in other words, *making* friends who might be interested in fitness the same way) seems to be a little less disturbing. Though of course, this doesn't mean that we shouldn't make friends for other reasons!

[wondrousbeauty.livejournal.com]

That was me, btw.

[arguchik.livejournal.com]

yeah, i think superannuated1l's point about genetics and body type is important, though. if two people with different body types are friends, and they eat together and exercise together, chances are that their bodies will respond differently even if their diet and exercise habits are identical.

the thing that bothers me about this whole issue is that the valorization of thin bodies already gives ectomorphic people a pretext for feeling "superior" to endomorphic, and even mesomorphic, people. (here's the wiki entry on somatotype (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somatotype), in case you or anyone else who might be reading is unfamiliar with those terms...the basic somatotype theory is somewhat problematic, but the article explains the terminology, anyway.) research projects that are constructed and reported like this one has been, can and probably will bolster those notions of superiority. scientific research into the "causailty" or "classificatory relationships" underlying any given social dichotomy will tend to bolster the system of privilege associated with it--i.e. to intensify the tensions, the conflicts, and the justifications for a structure of dominance/oppression. it's one part of an overdetermined structure.

[wondrousbeauty.livejournal.com]

I agree with you--when I say fitness, I'm not equating being "fit" with being "thin."

[arguchik.livejournal.com]

i figured that's what you meant, and that we were saying basically the same thing. i didn't intend that to be a reply directed specifically to your comment--i was just (mis?)using the comment function to say more of the stuff that's been going through my own mind on this subject. i probably should have just posted a new entry...

[rojonoir.livejournal.com]

It always bugs me how the mainstream media doesn't understand the difference between correlation and causality. The language is always too fuzzy to know what the results actually are.

The likeliest explanation is that people with similar eating and recreational habits tend to become friends more than people with different habits, and some habits are more likely to lead to someone becoming obese. Not a terribly exciting headline, though, I suppose.

The mainstream media also has a short memory - it wasn't too long ago that they were hyping a supposed link between an actual virus and obesity:
http://www.obesityvirus.com/

Rather than be sloppy with their language and imply some kind of viral causality, how about at least mention previously hyped news stories about an actual virus. Maybe even ask how the two studies relate?

[arguchik.livejournal.com]

YES--correlation/causality thing drives me insane as well.

i did not know that, about the virus thing. jeeeeez.

[superannuated1l.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah, and what's most awesome about the virus reporting is this:

--People testing positive for the fat-causing virus also have unusually low triglycerides and lower levels of "bad" cholesterol. (In other words, two of the negative health effects of weigh gain are NOT present in those who seem to have gained weight due to the virus. In fact, despite the extra weight, their blood lipid profiles are UNUSUALLY GOOD.)

--And yet, the advice for those folks is still "lose weight for your health." Never mind that there's no evidence that this particular weight gain is bad for their health. (And never mind the complete lack of any study showing that losing weight (as opposed to being naturally thin) results in any improvement in health or lifespan. And never mind that somewhere north of 95% of people who lose weight gain it back within 5 years.) Just do it. Please. Because your fat ass makes us uncomfortable.

This shit makes me want to kill.

[arguchik.livejournal.com]

And never mind that somewhere north of 95% of people who lose weight gain it back within 5 years.

...and that so-called "yo-yo dieting" (i.e. gaining weight back within 5 years of losing it) is evidently worse than simply keeping your weight the same, whatever it happens to be.