Your Friends Can Make You Healthy - or not

Research has shown that our social networks - family and friends - help us lose weight, or gain it, depending on how good our networks are. A study reported in The Gerontologist (48(5): 603-611) in 2008, indicates that our social environment plays an important role in the amount of food we eat.

This research learned that when we eat alone, there is little correlation with what we eat. But when we eat in social setting - with a companion, at a family dinner, pot-lucks, etc. - the amount of food we consume increases.

You might say that these are special occasions and we can offset them later. This is true and if they are only occasionally, there probably isn't too much to worry about. But, our social network also set the atmosphere for what is okay to eat and how much we should be eating. If your family and friends are overweight, you will probably be so. Not always but usually.

What can we do? If your friends and family are insistant on you eating more and more of the wrong foods, there's not much you can do other than ignoring them - if possible. Consider however, that you may be the influence to get them to change. If you can stick to your guns and show them how much better you feel, you may be able to make the change necessary for them to feel better also.

If you have a group that already keeps you healthy - wonderful! If you have any ideas about how to make changes or have experiences of how family and friends help you stay healthy or make you overweight, leave a comment and let's get ideas flowing.

Changes at the Chiropractic Centers

Welcome to our first blog. We are making several changes at The Chiropractic Centers and want to keep you informed. We also hope to use this space to communicate to you about many subjects and to get communication back from you about what you have been experiencing and what questions you may have that might be answered by others.

Give us suggestions about what you would like to see on this blog, in our new quarterly newsletter and on our website. We hope this will be of service to you as well as to us.