Wednesday July 25, 2007, 3:40 pm
What GARBAGE! This study is not worth the paper it is printed on. I am a sociologist who researches the stigma of obesity and this study has so many flaws:

Did they control for social class? People tend to befriend people from the same socioeconomic status. Poorer people are fatter than richer people in Western societies. Not only because fattening food is cheaper and more crime ridden neighborhoods discourage exercize (since we can't get away from those stereotypes about fat people) but also because stress can cause weight gain and so can the higher amount of polution poor people are exposed to. So it is not that having a fat friend makes a person fatter, but that social class affects both weight and who will be in one's social circle.

The article did not take into account how weight obsession itself may play a role. Women especially are VERY body conscious. They notice even small weight differences between themselves and their friends. People of similar sizes tend to befriend each other. Maybe some people were not technically "obese" yet, but a bit plump. Those people who have a genetic tendency to be fatter later on may befriend each other as being even a little plump in this society brings stigma. And since there is such a strong stigma, people with fat family members may befriend each other. Again, their genetic tendency toward weight gain may not show up until later in life.

Nor did they take into account DIETING, which is one of the true causes of weight gain. Plump friends usually encourage each other to diet, which causes rapid gain throughout ones life. On the other hand, naturally thin people may not have that much in common with dieters so they form their own social groups. There are also groups of friends that encourage extreme diets to the point of eating disorders. The study never mentioned whether these supposed thin friends who encouraged weight loss in others did so in a health way or not.

Finally, the statistics themselves are completely misleading. MOST people gain weight as they age. Because Pharma lowered the weight standards to maximize their profits, most people are labeled "overweight." One could just as easily found a correlation between friends and grey hair and wrinkles. There is a strong probability that many of your friends will get grey hair and wrinkles decades down the line. So will you. Does having friends destined to go grey CAUSE this, or is it just a natural part of aging.

What this study really shows is how DESPERATE big Diet/Pharma is getting. The health scares are not holding up no matter how much Pharma tries to manipulate the data. Physical scientists are uncovering overwhelming evidence body size is largely genetically determined. And more and more folk are becoming less concerned with their weight as prices rise, environmental disasters loom and we understand what REAL crises are all about. This is an attempt to generate stigma to force people into buying worthless weight loss pills and products. I noticed they quoted "experts" like Dietz who have ties to Pharma and BigDiet! Shame on them for exploiting stigma and spreading lies just to make a buck!!!1

"Weight obsession is a social disease. If we cared more about CO2 than BMI there would still be time."