PERSONAL HEALTH : Good Friends Can Keep You Healthy

An active social life may be good for your health, researchers have long suggested. A new study lends weight to that idea.

People who maintain satisfying relationships with a mate, friend or fellow member of a club are less likely to smoke or drink heavily and more likely to wear seat belts, says Clifford Broman, a Michigan State University sociologist who analyzed data from the government’s National Survey of Personal Health Practices and Consequences.

The employee-employer relationship had limited effects on health behavior, he found, and those effects are often negative.

When an important social relationship is lost, good health habits tend to decline, at least temporarily, Broman’s analysis shows. The loss of a marital relationship, for instance, often resulted in heavier smoking among the survey sample. This might be a “grief reaction,” he says.

How to explain the link between good social relationships and good health habits?

“Those with social relationships may feel a sense of responsibility to people (they are involved with), inspiring them to self-regulate their behavior,” speculates Broman, whose findings were published in the Journal of Behavioral Medicine.

On the other hand, he adds, people with meaningful social relationships might just be the types “who take to heart messages about good health practices.”