Many of us probably remember our parents telling us to watch out who we hung around with. If you spent time with trouble-makers, you were likely to get in trouble yourself.
It makes sense. But what about this? If you spend time with obese people, chances are better than average that you will become obese yourself. Sounds like silly speculation, right. Something that you might’ve read in The Secret. Like attracts like.
But guess what? That was the finding of  mainstream Harvard scientists whose research results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Obesity, they report, is socially contagious. “We find that a person’s chances of becoming obese increase by 57% if they have a friend who becomes obese, 40% if they have a sibling who becomes obese, and 37% if a spouse becomes obese,” say researchers Nicholas Christakis, MD, PhD, and James Fowler, PhD.
Mutual friends more than triple the risk to each other,” note Christakis and Fowler. “If one of the two [mutual friends] becomes obese, the chance for the other to follow suit goes up 171%.”
Yikes! This report came out in 2007. So I was wondering if this theory has been discounted in the past four years. Turns out there was a new report that came out in a journal called Obesity that confirms the early study that obesity is socially contagious.
So now we need some research to find out if hanging out with skinny people has a similar contagious effect.
OK, guys, close your eyes! All my life I’ve noticed that in groups of women who are together, either at work or in friendships or sisters, etc, and in reproductive ages, their menstrual periods never fail to eventually work around to coming at exactly the same time each month! That’s synchronicity in my book. All 3 of my young granddaughters fit into this category, and my son says he tries to leave home and go fishing for a week once a month to escape all the PMS!! 🙂
I think that’s also been scientifically proven, using women in college dorms as the group. Poor son!
Talking about like attracts like and ayahuasca from the previous post.I have just started reading Caiseal Mor’s new book called “What is Magic?”
https://www.mahjee.com/store.html
and on page 30 he writes;
“James Cameron’s movie Avatar echos the experiences of Dr Rick Strassman’s DMT test subjects.It also aligns with the experiences of people I’ve spoken with who have taken DMT in a spiritual context.For thousands of years,deep in the forests of the Amazon,healers have been brewing up a potent medicine.They call it Aya,Yage or Ayahusasca.It’s based on the juice of a plant known as the Vine of Souls.The main active ingredient of Aya is DMT.It’s interesting that the centrepiece of the movie “Avatar” is the ‘Tree of Souls’.”
So based on the like attracts like principal,it’s a good sign for this planet that so many movie patrons voted this movie to the top of the all time box office takings record with their hard earned dollars.
Another book to read! You’ll love Strassman’s book if you haven’t read it already. Thanks for the link!
I think it was interesting that at the 2010 Academy Awards, both James Cameron and his ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow were nominated for Best Director and their films were nominated for Best Picture. Also an interesting juxtaposition. James Cameron’s film “Avatar” had typically female sensibilities while Bigelow’s film “The Hurt Locker” had male sensibilities. The Academy went with Bigelow and her film. She became the first woman to win Best Picture and it was for a male-dominated war film.
Also interesting, I had seen the trailer for “Avatar” and was not interested in seeing it, but when so many women at my previous office raved about the movie (and the guys were “meh!”), my curiosity was piqued. I did not think women would be interested in the film so I wanted to learn why they loved it while the guys I knew thought it was merely okay. I saw it in 3-D and loved it. I also understood why women loved it, too.
I haven’t seen “The Hurt Locker” yet,but I have seen “Avatar” in 3-D and I thought that was one of the best movies I had seen all year.I wanted to take my wife along to see it in 3-D,but try as I might to persuade her I could never get her to go see it.
She is a Taurus,which I believe suits her because she is as stubborn as a bull.
Actually it would be more appropriate if she was born under a star sign that had a mule as it’s avatar .-)
Without a doubt, all of the skinny folk have moved into my neighborhood. There’s no keeping up with the Jones’s here because they all run too fast. Social pressure has a lot to do with it.
Ah, right, the jogging faction in the suburbs. Hmmm.
Since this blog is primarily about synchronicity, it makes sense for that research to be mentioned here even if it’s not about synchronicity. It’s more about the six degrees of freedom and ways we subconsciously and indirectly can influence other people and they can influence us (sometimes even if we never meet each other). Mentality and creative scenes do border with synchronicity: The Beatles (successful solo musicians), Metallica (branching into Megadeth), Pearl Jam (Eddie Vedder replacing Stone Gossard as the main songwriter), “good” actors from action movies Mel Gibson and Clint Eastwood becoming even better directors… There was even a very famous Italian painter (I don’t remember at the moment which one out of many) was at the beginning a helper or a servant to other painters without any ambitions or awareness that he would one day become even bigger than them.
Good points! Nice to see you, Aleksandar!
I meant “six degrees of separation”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation
That was how I read it! I guess the brain fills in the blanks.
Its an interesting idea. In Portland, I see a lot of obese people and in my last office, there was an overabundance of obesity and I often wondered if that contributed to the misery factor, because the employees with the worst attitudes were obese (not all, but most). In my social circle, there aren’t many obese people. In fact, in my social circle and close friendships, all of us have traveled overseas and are interested in international issues. When I told a good friend that I had read a few years ago that only 10% of Americans have a passport, he couldn’t believe it. He thought the number was much higher. But 10% would be 30 million Americans and that sounds about right. We think its more because our circle of friends have all traveled overseas, but I know many people through work and church who have never been out of the country. Like does attract like.
As for the “opposites attract”, I don’t think that’s true. I think people look at personality and see one extrovert and one introvert and think opposites attract, but they probably have a lot more in common than they don’t have in common. Its just the extrovert / introvert personalities match up well. I’ve also seen introvert / introvert couples, but I don’t think I’ve seen a couple where both were extroverts (too much competition for the other’s attention).
Wow, only 10 percent?! I always thought it was higher than that. But it may explain why this country is in such a mess.
10% is 30 million. A lot of Americans can’t afford to travel and a lot of Americans are “afraid” of foreigners. I remember one lady asking me (after hearing about my travel experiences) if I was ever “afraid”, which I thought was a funny question. Foreigners have often been much kinder to me than fellow Americans have. People are people and if you show an interest in their culture and country, that goes a long way in good will.
30 million Americans with a passport is actually a lot of people. It sounds about right, because most people I meet have not been outside the U.S. A lot have not been to more than five states. In my circle of friends, I think its 100% have traveled outside the U.S. Its just a different mindset between those who’ve traveled overseas versus those who’ve never been.
as a total thing aside – just in a hurry going out the door – but came across this while ago – as i had just finished watching ufo/uso show on history channel 2 –
https://www.mysteries.tk/politics/was-jfk-killed-because-of-his-interest-in-aliens
haven’t even had a chance to read let alone absorb but thought it interesting –
Just looked at that article. Interesting possibilities! Thanx for the link!!
There’s an idea that if we want to find out what we are really like we should take a look at our friends. So maybe ‘birds of a feather …’ and all that has some truth.
!!
Good one, Mike. I guess that’s why we just spent a couple of days with a couple who are wealthy writers with a TV series!
Let’s hope so! Good luck.
That seems to negate the law of physics that”Opposites Attract”, doesn’t it! Regardless, I think I’ll go in search of a few skinny friends, just to check it out and see which hypothesis is correct: Like Attracts Like, or Opposites Attract. Can both work? Seems they negate each other in my book. Hhhhmmmmmmm. Considering the epidemic of obesity in our country….with tens of thousands of men, women and children in the obese category, hard to tell.
Maybe it works for anything – hang out with people who have low cholesterol – and your own goes down!
not surprising – but what does this say of the role of genetics –