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MONDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2009
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Fat Friends Eat More Together

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(Newser) – Overweight kids eat more when they eat with their overweight friends, Newsweek reports. A new study tested a child's consumption of healthy snacks and junk food while in the company of a friend or stranger who was either fat or lean. Overweight kids eating with a chubby buddy ate more unhealthy calories than any other pairing.

The research supports a 2007 study that found that kids who had a friend become obese had a 171% chance of doing the same. The current study’s authors attribute this to a form of social conditioning—after enough time in an overweight social circle, "I don't think people see others as being overweight anymore," Sarah-Jeanne Salvy said. "If anything, they see people who are normal weight as being overly skinny."

Overweight children eat more when eating together, a new study found.
Overweight children eat more when eating together, a new study found.   (Shutterstock)
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Being friends increased food intake, being overweight and eating with an overweight person increased eating, and when you combined those, the overweight friends were eating about 700 calories.
- Sarah-Jeanne Salvy, University of Buffalo

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8 comments
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Radzyn
Aug 11, 09 4:31 PM CDT
Pretty soon they'll start to eat eachother. Get some damn exercise!!! There's NO excuse for this kind of thing. That this is so widespread that it gets news coverage is one of the reasons we're being laughed at by the rest of the world. Reply
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Kookey90
Aug 11, 09 5:16 PM CDT
Wasn’t it William Shakespeare, or was it W.C. Fields whom once said “Friends that eat together stay together”. I think it may have been Shakespeare. Reply
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+3
Toon
Aug 11, 09 5:48 PM CDT
Why do so few Americans believe scientists? Really bad science reporting. Newser reports that "kids who had a friend become obese had a 171% chance of doing the same." Or in other words, for 17 out of every 10 kids who have a fat friend will become obese. Now this is so obviously wrong that I checked it out but if that number had been lower I might have decided that the study itself that was wrong. Reply
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+2
IN RESPONSE:
Spudsy
Aug 12, 09 1:05 PM CDT
Maybe they meant that a skinny kid with an obese friend will become morbidly obese. I blame my hideous appearance on the Mama Cass posters in my childhood bedroom. Oh, if only Twiggy had excited my pubescent loins!
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IN RESPONSE:
zentenai
Aug 13, 09 11:33 AM CDT
17 out of 10 fat kids can't be wrong!
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