Modeling the spread of an obesity intervention through a social network

Abstract

With the growing prevalence of obesity and the public health implications, it is critical to develop and evaluate potential interventions. One approach is to investigate the spread of positive health outcomes through a social network. We employ the ground concepts of spread maximization problem and adapt it to best reflect the dynamics of a weight loss intervention. A diffusion model is then employed for the propagation of weight loss effect throughout the network of obese and overweight individuals. This diffusion model integrates both personal attributes and network-related attributes of an individual while engaged in a weight loss program. Simulation findings suggest that choosing initial agents based on individual attributes, including ability to lose weight, body mass index, and threshold, produced the highest total weight loss in the network. Greedy algorithm was also applied to choose the most effective subset of initial seeds.