HHS HealthBeat (July 26, 2007)

Is obesity contagious?

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

It looks like obesity is contagious – you can catch it from your friends. Researchers found that in a long-running study of the health of people from Framingham, Massachusetts.

For instance, the chances of a person becoming obese were 57 percent higher if the person’s friend had become obese. The chance of one brother or sister becoming obese also was higher if another had already.  And the same with married couples.

But there’s hope. At the University of California, San Diego, researcher James Fowler:

``We’ve not only shown that obesity is contagious, but that thinness is contagious. And so whenever you are trying to make your life better, you should try to do it in groups rather than on your own.’’ (11 seconds)

The study in the New England Journal of Medicine was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Learn more at hhs.gov.

Last revised: July, 26 2007