Collective Intelligence, Social Networks and Propagation of a Social Disease, Obesity

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a theoretical framework (conceptualization and formalization) which seeks to model obesity as a process of transformation of one's own body determined by individual (physical and psychological), inter-individual (relational, i.e., relative to the relationship between the individual and others) and socio-cultural (environmental, i.e., relative to the relationship between the individual and his milieu) factors. Individual and inter-individual factors are tied to each other in a socio-cultural context whose impact is notably related to the visibility of any body being exposed on the public stage in a non-contingent way. The question we are dealing with in this article is whether such kind of social diseases, i.e., depending upon socio-environmental exposure, can be considered as "contagious". In other words, can obesity be propagated from individuals to individuals or from environmental sources over a whole population?