Having someone else around who's a negative influence on dietary, entertainment, and general physical activity choices can have a large effect on the probability you'll need an ambulance.
Having someone else around who's a positive influence on dietary, entertainment, and general physical activity choices can have a large effect on the probability you'll need an ambulance.
Social interaction and co-habitation is not a zero-sum game. I'm sure we're both working from our own personal experience here, but for me I've always found living with a room-mate or significant other to be a net positive for both parties. It's easier to cook healthy home meals for two then one, both in terms of purchasing/portioning and the ability to split up or alternate the work. It's easier to not skip workouts or social events when you hold each other accountable for them. The mental and emotional stimulation that comes from having someone else to talk to and do things with rather than passively consuming mass media alone.
Sure, it's possible for someone with bad personal habits to be a negative influence on someone who struggles to maintain their own good habits, but two people with generally good habits can easily create positive feedback that allows them both to improve.
> Finding parity is quite difficult, particularly when you already take good care of yourself.
My wife and I have actually driven each other to be better than either of us alone ever were. We're fitter and healthier than we ever were, and it's largely because on nights I don't want to go the gym she does - we act as each-others champions.
Also, it's surprising to find out the things you don't about yourself until you see it through another person's eyes.
I hope you appreciate how exceptional a situation that is.
Statistically speaking, 75%+ of the adults in the US are overweight. That is the pool being drawn from.
So when you're not in the overweight majority, and have no interest in cohabitating with an overweight person who presumably lives a lifestyle contributing to being overweight, you already have just 25% or less of the population to pick from.
Now you need to find within that fraction someone you actually like as a person, who doesn't have any of the other unhealthy habits unrelated to being overweight you want nothing to do with.
You sound like you've made up your mind to make negative assumptions about others. You might be able to draw on statistics, even, in support of that. But the idea that 75% of the pool isn't eligible as far as you're concerned doesn't make the situation exceptional. Two overweight people could still cheer each other on. Or an overweight person and a non-overweight person could cheer each other on to different goals.
Your biases seem to be driving your views more than your supposed rationality, at least on this issue.
My wife and I both started overweight. I don't know why you think that being with an overweight person will drag you down. Sure, you may gain some initial chub as a lot of people in relationships do, but as the article indicates, the fact that you're not alone is probably going to do more for your life expectancy than those 10 lbs.
The article is pseudo-scientific nonsense, it doesn't prove any causal relationships, it's just observing a correlation.
There are plenty of obvious reasons people likely to die young would end up alone. It's natural to not be attracted to people likely to die young, it's a behavior our evolution has selected for.
We're not attracted to sick-looking people, for example.