Bad habit buddies

I see them through a haze of smoke. The smoking buddies, clustered in the car park. The same faces every day at the same time, topping up their nicotine levels and - just as importantly - updating each other on the boss's latest madness.

There's nothing more firmly bonding than a dodgy habit shared. At university I had a friend called Leanne who loved wine gums. Every day we would sit in lectures eating wine gums by the handful under the desk. We were the wine gum girls, and we saw ourselves as a special club.

Our clandestine snacking fits with research that shows that teens and preteens will eat more when eating with overweight friends than with slimmer ones. They also tend to snack more with people they know than with unknown kids.

It's what my grandmother used to call a "bad influence", even though I am sure I was just as much of a bad influence on Leanne as she was on me.

The social bond created by our habits is one of the reasons they are so hard to give up. If you and your drinking buddy Kevin aren't knocking back tequila while shouting "Olé" and balancing lemon slices on your foreheads, then what keeps you together?

The good news is that good habits are also easier to keep up when they're done in a group or with a buddy. According to research done at Harvard a couple of years ago, family members, friends, colleagues and even more distant acquaintances are influenced when someone in the circle gives up smoking. 

Rather than losing friends when our lifestyle improves, we could take them with us. So maybe booze buddy Kevin can become Pilates pal Kevin? It's worth a try