The Ripple Effect

Happy Saturday morning! It's on the cool side here in West Michigan (the high today is only going to be 68), making many of us question where summer went! I've decided that even though it's chilly, I'm choosing a positive attitude today! First of all, Psalm 118:24 tells me that "This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." I am truly thankful for each and every day that I have, and thankful that I have a loving Heavenly Father who knows each step that I take.

Secondly, my attitude is contagious - and so is yours! I recently came across an article from the December 2008 issue of Time magazine that talked about "The Happiness Effect." The article said that the net effect of one happy person impacts 1,181 people! According to the article, researches "explored the emotional state of nearly 5,000 people and the more than 50,000 social ties they shared. At three points during the long study, all the participants answered a standard questionnaire to determine their happiness level, so that the scientists could track changes in emotional state. That led to their intriguing finding of just how contagious happiness can be: if a subject's friend was happy, that subject was 15% more likely to be happy too; if that friend's friend was happy, the original subject was 10% more likely to be so. Even if the subject's friend's friend's friend--entirely unknown to the subject--was happy, the subject still got a 5.6% boost. The happiness chain also worked in the other direction, radiating from the subject out to her friends."

So the attitude we choose is more powerful than most of us ever realized, and it ripples out far beyond our immediate circle of family and friends. Wow!

What is equally fascinating is that the article went on to state that "The infectiousness of happiness is only the latest in a series of similar phenomena [the researchers] have studied. In 2007 they published a paper showing that obesity travels across webs in a similar way, with individuals having a 57% greater risk of being overweight if they have an obese friend."

What I have seen over the past two years is that something else is also "contagious" - getting healthy! As people get on Take Shape for Life/Medifast 5&1 and get excited about losing weight and getting healthy, it's almost inevitable that they will also have family members and friends who decide to try the program. I've certainly seen this in my own family: my husband, my son, my son-in-law, and both my parents got on the program and reached their weight loss goal. One of my closest friends lost 70 pounds, and other friends have lost from 20 to over 100 pounds as well. As my family members and friends lost weight, THEIR friends wanted to know what they were doing, and some of them also got on the program.

What we're doing today when we choose to stay on plan will impact more people than we know. I love knowing that a lot of people are much healthier (and happier) today because they watched me lose weight. It's also very humbling, because I know there were some days when it was incredibly difficult to stay on plan, and there were many times when I momentarily felt like I didn't want to do it anymore. If I had quit before I reached my goal, I know that I would most likely be back to 260 pounds and on a number of medications, including meds for diabetes. I also know that a lot of people I know and love would also still be overweight or obese, still on medication, and still struggling.

Today I hope you are excited about your life and infecting others with that joy. I also hope that, as you stay on plan and continue progressing towards your goal, you will see a lot of the people you care about the most inspired to join you! If you don't feel like staying on plan today, do it anyway - not only for yourself, but for all the people you love. Start a ripple of health!