November 28, 2022 — How important is the social dimension of physical activity? Recent modeling research published in PLOS One suggests that it’s critical. Ensela Mema and colleagues developed a mathematical model to estimate both social and non-social influences on physical activity across the population. They found that social influences were critical for maintaining physical activity or reducing sedentary […]
August 25, 2019 — For African American men, a new study tells us frequent church attendance predicts double the risk of obesity. That’s versus men who seldom attend. But in these data, researchers found no such link for women. Health in Faith-Based Settings Keisha Bentley‑Edwards used data from the National Survey of American Life. It’s a fascinating study with […]
November 30, 2018 — The idea that obesity is contagious is a “brilliant analogy,” says a distinguished professor of pediatrics, Leonard Epstein. More and more research supports this view. But the ideas about contagion require careful thinking in this context. Thinking about transmitting obesity from one person to another is not especially helpful. What’s more relevant is thinking about […]
February 1, 2018 — Obesity seems to move through a person’s social network, as we described here last week. But today, we have a new study in Obesity that shows the positive effect that a very intimate social network can have. In a randomized controlled trial, researchers found good evidence for a spousal benefit in weight management. When one […]
July 19, 2015 — It might be that kids help grownups eat better, according to a new observational study just published in Obesity. This particular study (by Winston et al) looks at the relationship between helpful or unhelpful friends and family, and weight outcomes in a population of mostly female Black and Hispanic adults. On average, people lost about 11 […]
October 4, 2014 — When it comes to healthy dining, it seems that the company you keep really does matter. Obesity can spread through social networks. This observation has been pretty well documented for a while now, but the nature of the relationship between obesity risk and social networks has been understood more as an association than as cause and effect. For example, […]
