The social network of adolescents: The influence of friendship in the development of obesogenic habits
Abstract
This aim of this article is to demonstrate the importance of social networks in the obese adolescent's environment. This study emerged in response to the paucity of information encountered in the literature as regards whether adolescents eat better or worse and/or performs more or less physical exercisedepending on their friendship networks. We performed a literature search at the University of León library which focused on obesity and an analysis of young people's social networks, exploring databases such as the Web of Knowledge (WOK), SciELO and Scopus, among others. Articles and other documents of interest were identified using journals from the disciplines of Sociology and the Health Sciences. After the most relevant texts had been read in full, the following results were obtained: (1) relationships influence adolescents' habits, (2) the quality and quantity of food they consume can depend on the type of network to which they belong, and (3) the amount of physical exercise that adolescents do can be influenced by their best friends, by the wider group to which they belong and even by friends of friends. The foregoing suggests that the study of adolescents' social networks could be a useful tool for identifying behaviour patterns; it is therefore applicable to health and public health programmes and would contribute to the sustainability of the system
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