Friendship may stave off rise in kids’ obesity

WASHINGTON - Ever thought of friendship as a solution to the growing problem of obesity in kids? Research says a child’s social network is an essential factor in his or her motivation to eat.

Sarah-Jeanne Salvy, assistant professor of paediatrics, who led the study at the University at Buffalo, says: “Consider a person who usually comes home alone after school and eats out of boredom.”

“Our findings underscore the importance of considering the child’s social network in studying the youth’s motivation to eat,” she says.

The study involved 54 overweight and non-overweight youth, 24 boys and 30 girls aged between nine and 11 years. Each was assigned randomly to bring a friend or to be paired with an unfamiliar peer.

Participants worked on a computer game to earn points exchangeable for food or time to spend with their friend or with an unfamiliar peer.

“The task got increasingly harder and the food and social points became more difficult to earn as a way to measure how hard youth were willing to work for food or for play time with their friend or with an unfamiliar peer,” Salvy notes.

In the study, participants matched with an unfamiliar peer showed that when working for food became difficult, they switched to earn time with the unfamiliar peer, and when working for peer activity became harder, they switched to earn food.

However, participants assigned to the friend condition continued to work for time with their friends instead of working for food, said a Buffalo release.

“There is emerging evidence that a youth’s social network may be uniquely relevant and influential to eating behaviour and choice of activities,” concludes Salvy.

The study appears online in the current issue of Annals of Behavioural Medicine.