Being surrounded by high-status people can help people stay slim, but only if you're a woman, new research suggests. The study reveals new nuances in the relationship between a person's weight and the socioeconomic status of people close to them, and suggests that gender plays an important role in that relationship. The study analyzed the relationship between an individual's weight, as measured by a visual assessment, the socio-economic status of the people they are close to such as their education level, lifestyle and gender.
The data confirms this:People with a more educated personal network are more likely to describe themselves as athletic, which can lead to lower body weight. However, this only applies to women. For men, however, the opposite applies:more higher status contacts are associated with higher weights. The researchers speculate that while thinness may still be the ideal for women as their socioeconomic status increases their social contacts, men may feel more social pressure to prove they are male breadwinners concerned about being overweight and weight control. For example, they may be less inclined to practice a weight-conscious lifestyle, such as dieting or exercising, than women.
