By now, you've heard about the study in today's news concluding that obesity is socially contagious, as is thinness. The study is no Mickey Mouse effort. It covers some 32 years and over 12,000 people. It was conducted by Harvard Medical School and University of California San Diego researchers. (The figure shown is from James Fowler of UC San Diego, and it depicts the close correlation of obesity and social networks. Or so I gather. For all I know, it's illustrating vomit dispersion or aerial demographics of Berlin graffiti artists. It took years to create. Anyway, it's gorgeous, Jim.)
This story fascinates me on many levels.
1. I love the term "socially contagious." It's probably old hat to you hipper academics, but it's new to me. A cursory Google search yields hits related to obesity, homosexuality, gun violence, smoking, organizational misbehavior, substance abuse, and materialism. For starters. I'm sure I'm misstating or intimating core arguments incorrectly for each of those topics. But I predict this study will catapult the term socially contagious into the front lines of discourse, including as a weapon in the U.S. presidential election campaign (which really cannot claim to reach the heights of something called discourse). And then we will grow socially weary of this contagious phrase. (Perhaps you already have done so.)
2. The concept is hardly surprising. After all, sober people choose sober friends; boozers hang out with other drinkers; gangstas congregate with other gangstas; willowy ballet dancers associate with other willowy ones. From what I discern, though, this research says it goes deeper than that. The study seems to say we don't merely reinforce and validate each other's behavior but actually cause it by setting social norms. (I'm only surmising this, based on the linked summary. Don't ask me how or why. What do I look like a sociologist?)
3. This underscores the need for social research on eating. Here's what I mean. My eighth-grade science teacher, Mr. Charles Robinson at Burdick Junior High School in Stamford, Connecticut, extolled the virtues of how we eat, not just what we eat. He pointed out the healthy habits of ethnic and ancient groups who ate as a group. Eating for them was (is) communal, unhurried, and entirely social. Contrast that with modern America: eating is solitary, fractured, rushed, or distracted (or some mixed salad of all those adjectives). There's no doubt in my mind that cancer research should focus more on how we eat at least as much as what we eat. That's why, if I owned the company, no one would be allowed to eat at their desk while working, ever, and a lunch break with real food would be mandated.
Chew on that.
8 comments:
I eat almost every meal sans dinner (which is always a family thing) hurried, rushed, standing over the sink or in my car or at my desk.
And I know it is why I have a hard time with my weight. I love food and the cultural dining experience of other countries and feel that as a whole, Americans miss out on it.
But the problem with us Americans is that we are so fast-paced, that we do not weave time in our days for the proper eating.
Nice post.
Can I work for your company? Please?
I miss social eating...
You can definitly see this. Most food company's are trying to make things quicker and easier as the years go on.
Would you like to exchange links?
Just follow this link to see the details
Link Exchange – Random Acts of Kindness
I'm chewing, I'm chewing.
I saw the report on the "news" or whatever they give us on cable.
You speak of birds of a feather here. But why, then, is variety supposedly the spice of life?
Interesting trip down memory lane with the eighth grade stuff, P.K.
Don't think I can remember what a teacher said in junior high.
But can you categorize blogging as socially contagious? Although does our subconscious really drive our behaviour norms?
Andreanna,
Be a good girl and chew your food.
M,
Nice to see you back. Take back your life.
A,
Will consider, though I sort of admire Monicker for having no blogroll at all.
P,
I don't know what I'm talking about. I went to the site for the New England journal of Medicine; that's where the article was published. I need to learn more. 7th grade: now there was a class: Mrs. Rivers and her English class.
R,
Yes, very much so, I'd say, on both counts.
PK,
That thud you heard was me falling off my chair in a fit of laughter.
Aerial demographics... such a funny guy.
Birds of a feather... yes, makes perfect sense. Willowy. Good adjective, they are very willowy.
You look like a laughorist.
I completely agree with your take on meals... excellent food for thought.
Scarlett & V.
Having just returned from your side of the pond, I can confirm that eating habits over there are strange. As are portion sizes, and the way menus are constructed. All or nothing.
Puss
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