Study Calling Obesity “Socially Contagious” Criticized

A hilarious ad in my morning New York Times headlines e-mail made me laugh out loud even though I’m in a bit of an early-morning stupor at the moment. I don’t want to reproduce it here because of copyright issues, but here’s the setup: two hippos standing shoulder deep in water, with just their faces and their backs showing. One is walking toward the camera, with the second slightly behind. The caption reads, “Fred, stop standing so close. I might get fat.”

How could you not click on that? So of course I did.

And I found a funny blog post at the Center for Consumer Freedom summarizing criticism about the recent NEJM-published study on the spread of obesity in social networks:

The “second-hand obesity” study published in today’s New England Journal of Medicine is drawing criticism worldwide. New York Times columnist Gail Collins not only doubts the validity of the study, but goes as far as to question the reputation of any medical journal that would publish such a report: “There was a time when the New England Journal of Medicine did not come up that often in water-cooler conversation, but pretty soon it’s going to be all you need to read.”

Accompanying the excerpts from two other critical commentaries is a link to a so-called game wherein you can compare your weight to celebrities. So of course I had to click on that, too. And I’m amused to report that I’m “government approved.” I don’t know how that compared with celebrities, so I tried punching in a few other numbers to get into the “too thin,” “overweight,” and “obese” categories, and that’s where the celebs came in. I won’t ruin the surprise, though. :]

Contents © Copyright 2007 Kristen King