Having fat friends could be making you fat.

Or at least that’s according to a recent UK study, which states humans are subconsciously influenced by the weight of those around them.

Researchers at the University of Warwick into European lifestyles say people tend to gauge how fat they are by comparing themselves to their peers.

So, if most of your mates are fat, your idea of what is overweight is different to those whose mates are all skinny.

Professor Andrew Oswald, who analysed data from 27,000 European adults across 29 countries, said: “Human beings compare themselves among their localised peer group even if they are not conscious of it.”

This, of course, is instead of utilising the usual fail-safes when judging weight, such as scales, how much their bits wobble and what they see when they look in the mirror.

So how does this make you fat? Well, once your ideas of what a fat person actually look like, you start to tell yourself that being 16st and only 5ft 1 is normal.

After all, among your fat friends, you are the one they all call ‘anorexic’ and ‘skinny’.

This, of course, is forgetting one thing: the rest of the world’s population. Yep, if you were to believe this research you would think people blindly stumble around their lives paying little attention to the people in work, people in shops, people in the street. You get the idea.

Not to mention the nasty media. So is Prof Oswald saying we have the intelligence of your average garden snail? Well, maybe.

According to his research people of supposedly higher intelligence - in other words, people with more qualifications (not the most accurate barometer admittedly) – are more likely to think they are overweight than those of the same weight with less qualifications. That is, of course, because they read more books.

So what is the point of this research? Are they asking us to ditch our chubby mates and get rid of the elephant in the room?

Well, maybe not. Rather we can’t stop copying our friends, so if we all lost weight, so would they.

And if we didn’t? Well, Prof Oswald added: “[If fatness levels increase and] we all start copying each other we will end up with quite serious health problems.

“Rising obesity needs to be thought of as a sociological phenomenon, not a physiological one.”

Having fat friends could be making you fat.

Or at least that’s according to a recent UK study, which states humans are subconsciously influenced by the weight of those around them.

Researchers at the University of Warwick into European lifestyles say people tend to gauge how fat they are by comparing themselves to their peers.

So, if most of your mates are fat, your idea of what is overweight is different to those whose mates are all skinny.

Professor Andrew Oswald, who analysed data from 27,000 European adults across 29 countries, said: “Human beings compare themselves among their localised peer group even if they are not conscious of it.”

This, of course, is instead of utilising the usual fail-safes when judging weight, such as scales, how much their bits wobble and what they see when they look in the mirror.

So how does this make you fat? Well, once your ideas of what a fat person actually look like, you start to tell yourself that being 16st and only 5ft 1 is normal.

After all, among your fat friends, you are the one they all call ‘anorexic’ and ‘skinny’.

This, of course, is forgetting one thing: the rest of the world’s population. Yep, if you were to believe this research you would think people blindly stumble around their lives paying little attention to the people in work, people in shops, people in the street. You get the idea.

Not to mention the nasty media. So is Prof Oswald saying we have the intelligence of your average garden snail? Well, maybe.

According to his research people of supposedly higher intelligence - in other words, people with more qualifications (not the most accurate barometer admittedly) – are more likely to think they are overweight than those of the same weight with less qualifications. That is, of course, because they read more books.

So what is the point of this research? Are they asking us to ditch our chubby mates and get rid of the elephant in the room?

Well, maybe not. Rather we can’t stop copying our friends, so if we all lost weight, so would they.

And if we didn’t? Well, Prof Oswald added: “[If fatness levels increase and] we all start copying each other we will end up with quite serious health problems.

“Rising obesity needs to be thought of as a sociological phenomenon, not a physiological one.”

Having fat friends could be making you fat.

Or at least that’s according to a recent UK study, which states humans are subconsciously influenced by the weight of those around them.

Researchers at the University of Warwick into European lifestyles say people tend to gauge how fat they are by comparing themselves to their peers.

So, if most of your mates are fat, your idea of what is overweight is different to those whose mates are all skinny.

Professor Andrew Oswald, who analysed data from 27,000 European adults across 29 countries, said: “Human beings compare themselves among their localised peer group even if they are not conscious of it.”

This, of course, is instead of utilising the usual fail-safes when judging weight, such as scales, how much their bits wobble and what they see when they look in the mirror.

So how does this make you fat? Well, once your ideas of what a fat person actually look like, you start to tell yourself that being 16st and only 5ft 1 is normal.

After all, among your fat friends, you are the one they all call ‘anorexic’ and ‘skinny’.

This, of course, is forgetting one thing: the rest of the world’s population. Yep, if you were to believe this research you would think people blindly stumble around their lives paying little attention to the people in work, people in shops, people in the street. You get the idea.

Not to mention the nasty media. So is Prof Oswald saying we have the intelligence of your average garden snail? Well, maybe.

According to his research people of supposedly higher intelligence - in other words, people with more qualifications (not the most accurate barometer admittedly) – are more likely to think they are overweight than those of the same weight with less qualifications. That is, of course, because they read more books.

So what is the point of this research? Are they asking us to ditch our chubby mates and get rid of the elephant in the room?

Well, maybe not. Rather we can’t stop copying our friends, so if we all lost weight, so would they.

And if we didn’t? Well, Prof Oswald added: “[If fatness levels increase and] we all start copying each other we will end up with quite serious health problems.

“Rising obesity needs to be thought of as a sociological phenomenon, not a physiological one.”