Obesity can be considered a contagious disease

A new study published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics suggests that moving to a region or city with high levels of obesity may increase the risk of obesity.

Taking into account other factors that may lead to obesity, such as genetics and the environment, researchers conclude that to some extent obesity can be considered as "social contagion."

"Social transmission in obesity means that if more people around you are obese, it can increase your chances of being overweight," explains Ashlesha Datar, one of the study authors from the University of Southern California.

In other words, living in a community where obesity is more common can make sedentary lifestyles - less movement, unhealthy eating and overweight or obese are more socially acceptable.

Reported Los Angeles Times, this study focuses on military families. Because, they are often moved to a location that they can not select. It means eliminating a self-determining selection bias in which a person chooses to stay.

Using data from the Military Teenagers' Environments, Exercise and Nutrition Study (M-TEENS), the researchers combined details of 1,111 young adults and more than 1,300 parents assigned to one of 12 military bases in the United States.

Obesity rates in the states observed include the lower classes in El Paso County, Colorado with about 21 percent of obese adults, down to the upper classes like Vernon County, Louisiana where 38 percent of adults are overweight.

The study found that families assigned to areas with high levels of obesity tend to be overweight or obese. Vice versa.

"If a family moves to a low-obesity area, the odds of parents being obese will drop by 29 percent," said Datar.

One of the main aspects of this study is to take into account the differences between environmental factors that can explain the increased rate of obesity, and the idea of ​​obesity as a social contagion.

Obviously, if a community does not have many fitness centers or has a large number of fast-food restaurants, this will be an environmental factor that can explain higher levels of obesity.

Therefore researchers take into account many such environmental factors that are built as covariates in the model. But the obesity relationship remains clear. This shows there are other factors that play a role.

"We can not say with certainty that we take into account everything that might affect eating and exercise behavior, but we take into account the things that researchers typically include in this area and find that the environment does not play an important role in explaining our research results, "Flat explained.

This is not the first study to suggest that obesity can spread throughout the community in ways similar to infectious viruses.

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2007 examined an interconnected social network of 12,000 people, and whether weight gain in one person could be associated with weight gain in their friends or relatives.

This study looked at individuals over the age of 30 years and identified the fluctuations in body weight of each person during that period. This results in some very poor conclusions.

The researchers found that a person 57 percent more likely to be obese if a friend is overweight. If the friendship is very close, the risk factor triples.

Interestingly, this effect is not seen in neighboring relationships. However, when the sibling is overweight, it increases the chances of brother or sister being obese at a slightly lower level than other influences.

The results of this study indicate that the so-called epidemic of obesity may be more pronounced than previously thought.

Indeed, obesity is not a virus that infects people for the sake of people. But it seems that obesity spreads through social influence in a community or social network.

It is important to note, the conclusions drawn from this study are not to blame or exclude people who are overweight.

Instead, we should all be aware of social cues that unwittingly affect health.

Both studies show that western excess causes obesity, the opposite is true. Thus, healthy and skinny people can effectively influence their friends and community members positively.