Beware of Friends or Relatives Who Are Prone to Corpulence

Beware of Friends or Relatives Who Are Prone to Corpulence?

Well, the research is in. According to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, you are 57% more likely to become fat if you have a fat friend. The authors of the study, as is usually the case with academic research, did not just hint at an association between the two variables. No sir. They went for total causality. In the crusty world of social research, that is tantamount to saying that watching TV violence CAUSES people to behave violently. One almost never sees anything like this (and I spent five years in academia pursuing the “publish or perish” route).

So what are the implications of this? I being the overweight one (although 60 pounds less overweight than last year) am apparently the culprit here. My friends and colleagues, even my employees are in peril. God help the poor souls. So in a moment of introspection, I sat down, munched on some celery hearts and reviewed my social networks.

The results of my examination were perplexing to say the least: I don’t have any close friends who are fat. And these are people I have known for at least 20 years. Many of them have never even been on a diet. And they go out to dinner with me regularly. Most are ridiculously normal. One friend, who shall remain nameless, eats chicken fried steak like it’s popcorn and complains about having to take protein shakes to keep his weight up. Oh please. I could puke when I think about these people. I mean I like them but they piss me off. And extending it out a degree (thanks Kevin B), I doubt if they even have any friends who are overweight.

So where’s the causality? Perhaps it’s just the opposite. Maybe seeing them being so absurdly normal with regard to weight triggers a self-pity gene which produces a chemical reaction that lowers my metabolism when I’m around these folks. Maybe I should exclusively seek out other robust men and Rubinesque women: the sight of these folks might then jump-start some noveau-motivational gene lying dormant in my less-then-skimpy body. My tormented psyche would then scream: “I can’t be like them. Brain: do something.”

Sound silly? Well so do the astonishing conclusions of this study. Or perhaps I am just one of those ridiculous statistical outliers: some errant mutation falling considerably outside the bell curve. But after having spent more than my share of years in social sciences, I kind of doubt it.

As for the power of friendship, I have witnessed it many times. Why just the other night I was out with some thin friends having dinner. Was I giving off voodoo fat vibes to these unsuspecting souls? No, I was just enjoying my friends and they were enjoying me. Oh, and as for dessert, they all had the Crème Brulee except me.