my personal philosophy is:
If you want to look skinnier, hang around fatter friends.

That is how I maintain my figure

Could this be a habit thing? If you hang out with a group of people who play a lot of sports, chances are you'll play sports too. If you hang out with a lot of people who eat pizza whilst watching DVDs, you'll probably grab yourself a slice and sit right down.

If I'm around a friend who's gaining weight due to careless eating habits it's going to encourage me to watch what I eat more carefully, not cause me to do the same. I don't usually eat when my friends are eating or what they eat anyhow. I have to watch what I eat anyhow due to health problems, and the fact that I is Jewish. I think the study is fundamentally flawed, as it doesn't seem to take such things into consideration. I can see people developing some bad habits by picking them up from friends with whom they frequently "hang out", but actually getting fat because of friends...no, it seems altogether too narrow, both the conditions of the study and the analysis of the results.