According to a new study, if you’ve got fat friends, then you’re more likely to be fat yourself.
The research from James Fowler at University of California in San Diego and Nicholas Christakis at the Harvard Medical School in Boston suggests that there is a 60 percent higher chance of becoming obese if your friends also fit in the category. According to the New Scientist:
The finding has prompted researchers to call obesity a “socially contagious” disease in which a sense of what constitutes a normal body weight passes from one person to the next.
Of course, if you’re already fat, then the best thing to do is seek out thin people and become their friend, because the study also suggest the relationship works the other way.
But you’ll have to be fast. Those thin people will be running — screaming — the other direction the minute they see your gargantuan carcass heave into view.