囧研究：交了胖朋友你也會變胖！

If you really want to get slim, you may need to shed some of your heavier friends, scientists say.
科學家表示，如果你真想減肥，可能得避免跟胖朋友廝混了。

Researchers from Loyola University in Chicago found that Students were more likely to gain weight if they had friends who were heavier than they were. However, they were more likely to either slim down, or at least gain weight at a slower pace, if their friends were leaner than they were.
芝加哥洛約拉大學的研究人員發現，如果朋友比自己胖，學生本人也很可能變胖。反之，如果朋友比自己瘦，那麼本人則會變瘦，或者至少不那麼容易變胖。

Dr David Shoham, who led the study, said their findings, published in the journal PLoS ONE, could help them develop better interventions to treat obesity in teenagers.
大衛-索哈姆博士組織了此次研究，研究成果發表在《PLoS ONE》雜誌上。他認爲這有助於他們更好地治療青少年肥胖問題。

“We should not be treating adolescents in isolation,” he was quoted as saying by the Daily Mail. The study was designed to find out the reason why obesity and related behaviours appear to cluster in social networks.
“青少年肥胖問題不可孤立對待。”他對《每日郵報》說道。該研究旨在探究社會中肥胖及相關行爲爲何扎堆的問題。

The researchers wanted to know whether it is because friends influence one another’s behaviour or is it that teenagers befriend people who look similar to themselves.
研究人員想要查明，肥胖到底是受朋友影響，還是青少年喜歡跟氣息相投的人扎堆的原因。

They examined data from two large high schools — one refered to as Jefferson High located in a rural area and has mostly white students and another mentioned as Sunshine High was an ethnically diverse urban school.
他們研究了兩所大型高中的數據：一所是位於郊區的傑斐遜高中，以白人學生爲主；另一所則是位於城市的陽光高中，各種族學生都有。

Students were surveyed during the 1994-95 school year and surveyed again the following school year. Researchers examined data from 624 students at Jefferson High and 1,151 students at Sunshine High. Their body mass index was calculated from their height and weight. A BMI over 25 is considered overweight and a BMI over 30 is considered obese.
1994年到1995學年間，學生接受了一次調查，次年又被調查了一次。研究人員研究了傑斐遜高中624名學生以及陽光高中1151名學生的數據。學生的體重指數按照身高和體重計算。體重指數大於25爲超重，大於30則爲肥胖。

The researchers found that even after controlling for this friend-selecting process, there still was a significant link between obesity and a student’s circle of friends.
研究人員發現，即便對擇友過程進行了控制，肥胖問題和學生所交的朋友仍然大有關係。

If a borderline overweight student at Jefferson School had lean friends there was a 40 percent chance the student’s BMI would drop in the future. However, if they had obese friends there was a 15 percent chance they would slim down.
在傑斐遜高中，肥胖學生如果有苗條的朋友，他的體重指數以後就有40%下降的機率。但是，如果他交了胖朋友，日後變瘦的機率就僅有15%。

The findings show that social influence “tends to operate more in detrimental directions, especially for BMI”, said the authors.
研究人員說，結果證明社會影響的“不利作用似乎很大，尤其在體重指數上。”

“Effective interventions will be necessary to overcome these barriers, requiring that social networks be considered rather than ignored,” Dr Shoham said.
“有效的干預將有助於克服上述問題，不過社會影響必須得到重視。” 索哈姆博士說道。

He noted that the study relied on self-reported data and was collected over a decade ago. Nevertheless, the results raised important questions about peer influence, he said.”Our results support the operation of both homophily and influence,” he added.
他還表示，此項研究的數據是十年前自動報告的數據，但研究結果還是引起了人們對同齡影響的疑惑。他說：“研究結果證明遺傳和社會影響都能導致肥胖。”