Obesity
spreads “contagiously” through social networks, a highly publicized
2007 study claimed, and since then, some researchers have been working
to use social networks to reverse the nation’s obesity epidemic. Now a
new study suggests that may be possible. Researchers at MIT found that
by bringing people who had similar traits together into a social
network, with the aim of increasing physical fitness, they increased how
many people picked up a new activity that could bring about healthy
lifestyle changes. Even people who were obese were more likely to pick
up the new activity when grouped with other obese people than when
grouped with thinner people. Participants paired with others of similar
body mass, age, fitness level and diet preferences were three times as
likely to adopt healthy behaviors as those matched randomly in an
Internet-based study, researchers said.
