The more social ties people have at an early age, the better their health is at the beginnings and ends of their lives, a new study suggests.
Researchers say the study is the first to definitively link social relationships with concrete measures of physical well-being such as abdominal obesity, inflammation, and high blood pressure, all of which are associated with long-term health problems, including heart disease, stroke, and cancer.
“Based on these findings, it should be as important to encourage adolescents and young adults to build broad social relationships and social skills for interacting with others as it is to eat healthy and be physically active,” says Kathleen Mullan Harris, professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.