Marathe Achla, Pan Zhengzheng, Apolloni Andrea
Network Dynamics and Simulation Science Laboratory, Virginia Bioinformatics Institute, and Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA.
Facebook Inc., 1601 Willow Rd, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA.
ACM Trans Intell Syst Technol. 2013 Jun;4(3). doi: 10.1145/2483669.2483689.
We employ Add Health data to show that friendship networks, constructed from mutual friendship nominations, are important in building weight perception, setting weight goals and measuring social marginalization among adolescents and young adults. We study the relationship between individuals' perceived weight status, actual weight status, weight status relative to friends' weight status and weight goals. This analysis helps us understand how individual weight perceptions might be formed, what these perceptions do to the weight goals, and how does friends' relative weight affect weight perception and weight goals. Combining this information with individuals' friendship network helps determine the influence of social relationships on weight related variables. Multinomial logistic regression results indicate that relative status is indeed a significant predictor of perceived status, and perceived status is a significant predictor of weight goals. We also address the issue of causality between actual weight status and social marginalization (as measured by the number of friends) and show that obesity precedes social marginalization in time rather than the other way around. This lends credence to the hypothesis that obesity leads to social marginalization not vice versa. Attributes of friendship network can provide new insights into effective interventions for combating obesity since adolescent friendships provide an important social context for weight related behaviors.
我们利用“青少年健康纵向研究”（Add Health）的数据表明，通过相互提名朋友构建的友谊网络，对于青少年和年轻人形成体重认知、设定体重目标以及衡量社会边缘化程度至关重要。我们研究个体的感知体重状况、实际体重状况、相对于朋友体重状况的体重状况以及体重目标之间的关系。这种分析有助于我们理解个体体重认知是如何形成的，这些认知对体重目标有何影响，以及朋友的相对体重如何影响体重认知和体重目标。将这些信息与个体的友谊网络相结合，有助于确定社会关系对与体重相关变量的影响。多项逻辑回归结果表明，相对地位确实是感知地位的重要预测因素，而感知地位是体重目标的重要预测因素。我们还探讨了实际体重状况与社会边缘化（以朋友数量衡量）之间的因果关系问题，并表明肥胖在时间上先于社会边缘化，而非相反。这支持了肥胖导致社会边缘化而非相反的假设。友谊网络的属性可以为对抗肥胖的有效干预措施提供新的见解，因为青少年时期的友谊为与体重相关的行为提供了重要的社会背景。
