Mechanisms and Strategies for Addressing the Social Contagion of Obesity from the Perspective of Sports and Health Communication

The social contagion of obesity can give rise to a range of societal issues, making it crucial to understand the underlying mechanisms involved. This study adopts a grounded theory approach to construct a theoretical model of the social contagion of obesity. The findings suggest the following: 1) The initial occurrence of social contagion of obesity takes place within life networks, with the family environment being a key representative. Children, sharing the same material, social, economic, and cultural context as their parents, imitate their behaviors and adopt their cognitions, leading to intergenerational transmission of obesity; 2) obese individuals, influenced by societal values, norms, and standards, are prone to becoming ensnared in the information cocoon of the online environment. When interacting with others within this cocoon, they are more likely to lower their guard towards weight-gaining behaviors, resulting in secondary group contagion of obesity; 3) obese individuals experience a shift in self-perception during social interactions, engaging in self-persuasion that leads them to make unintended choices. This weakens their “immunity” and exacerbates obesity. Drawing on the perspective of sports and health communication, this study proposes strategies to address the social contagion of obesity: 1) Leveraging the embodiment of sports and health communication, both communicators and recipients can transmit information through active engagement in sports activities, enabling obese individuals to develop clearer motivations for sports participation and enhancing the efficacy of weight loss; 2) through frequent exposure to sports and health-related information during sports participation, obese individuals gradually develop a healthier value identity, which loosens or breaks the weight-gaining information cocoon; 3) building on the self-efficacy offered by the progressive nature of sports participation, recipients can strengthen their confidence in weight loss through self-interactions and transmit sports and health information to others within their social groups, thus facilitating interpersonal and societal dissemination of sports and health.