Obesity is a hot topic in psychology today, especially in Human Growth and Development. In this course, we discuss the relationship between chubby babies and overweight children, and then as we continue our journey "from the womb to the tomb," we touch on obesity in adolescence and adulthood. What causes it? What are the consequences? What can be done to curb this growing problem?
In class, we examine the role of genetics (is there a fat gene?), parents as role models, the media, sedentary lifestyles, fast food, video games, and just plain laziness as possible causes. Last week a new study revealed that friends have more of an impact on obesity than anything else, including family. If your friends are weight conscious, you will be too. If they exercise and watch their calories and fat grams, you will do the same. This is true even when friends are geographically separated. On the other hand, if friends follow their steak and potatoes meal with dessert, you'll probably do the same...and you won't do anything to burn off those calories.
What do you think? Do you think there's some truth to this study?
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2 comments:
Yes! and I think that we need to be concerned with the rise of juvenille diabetes. I have just done some statistical viewing on the CDCs Website (Center of Disease Control) and diabetes is in an epidemic status here in the U. S.
Thanks so much for posting something on the blog, Peg. Even though the course you're currently taking doesn't cover this topic in a direct way, you can see that it's an important one for psychology, right? In our course, we did discuss self-esteem and self-concept, both of which can be affected by body image. Unfortunately, others often judge us by our appearance, and I think that discrimination (topic of Chapter 15) can sometimes be based on size and shape, not just race, gender, and age. What do you think?
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