Interacciones sociales como determinantes de la obesidad y el sobrepeso

The World Health Organization (who) documents a constant and generalized increase in global weight population from the 1980 decade. This process is heterogeneous by geographical region, income level, and multiple social factors like gender, edge, education, employment and others. The who defi cause for this phenomenon, as an energetic disequilibrium between consumed and used, is not enough to explain the mentioned heterogeneity. In this work it is proposed that alimentation and therefore the individual's body weight is partially determined by the social interactions of every individual inside the reference group. Social interactions are externalities where preferences, constrains and expectations of one individual are a function of preferences, constrains and expectations of other individuals inside the reference group. The data base used consist in information of 369 students from the uam Cuajimalpa on their food consumption, their weight, high, some activities like dieting and exercise, their perceptions on their health and their corporal structure. For men, identity is the main determinant of their equilibrium weight, and for women, those determinants are identity, family obesity backgrounds, and the consumption of some foods.