Yes it is, it just spreads memetically rather than a virally.
"the researchers found that obesity spreads through social ties. When an individual gains weight, it dramatically increases the chances that their friends, siblings, and spouses will likewise gain weight. The closer two people are in a social network, the stronger the effect."
Children in families with obese parents are more likely to be obese, which ought to be obvious because they live on the same diets and same behavioural patterns. Overweight friends tend to have other overweight friends, and are naturally more tolerant of it. Pay close attention to social circles and try to figure out what the tolerance towards obesity is within groups of say, thin girls compared overweight ones and how that modulates their behavior.
This is not limited to obesity of course, drug use, smoking in particular behaviour that is addictive essentially spreads through social circles like a disease. Try to model the opioid epidemic (the word is chosen for a reason) like one and you would surely find the exact same patterns. These are not geographically or demographically random processes, they're transmitted within communities.
I'm not sure how the rate of spread makes it a bad comparison. the dynamics of contagion are what matters because it determines what interventions make sense.
you can use this pandemic frame to say, eliminate a drug 'super-spreader' cluster and it will have positive effects on a community at large. Likewise, changing the behavior of parents in regards to their diet will have real downstream effects on the health of the entire family.
"the researchers found that obesity spreads through social ties. When an individual gains weight, it dramatically increases the chances that their friends, siblings, and spouses will likewise gain weight. The closer two people are in a social network, the stronger the effect."
Children in families with obese parents are more likely to be obese, which ought to be obvious because they live on the same diets and same behavioural patterns. Overweight friends tend to have other overweight friends, and are naturally more tolerant of it. Pay close attention to social circles and try to figure out what the tolerance towards obesity is within groups of say, thin girls compared overweight ones and how that modulates their behavior.
This is not limited to obesity of course, drug use, smoking in particular behaviour that is addictive essentially spreads through social circles like a disease. Try to model the opioid epidemic (the word is chosen for a reason) like one and you would surely find the exact same patterns. These are not geographically or demographically random processes, they're transmitted within communities.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2007/07/obesity-is-co...