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Warning: Your Friends May Be Bad For Your Health


First Posted: 02/ 9/2012 3:44 pm Updated: 02/ 9/2012 3:44 pm

Can we talk about friends for a sec? We hang with them, rely on them...and, occasionally, do shots with them. But what do you do when your friendships get in the way of your taking care of you? Many women are kicking these kinds of relationships to the curb: In the Edelman Health Barometer 2011 survey, analyzed exclusively for Glamour, 32 percent of women ages 20 to 39 said they spent less time with a pal because of his or her negative health habits. "After my friend developed an eating disorder, it became too hard to be around her," admits Caitlin, 24, of Ann Arbor, Michigan. "I tried to help her as best as I could, but her obsession started rubbing off on me. When I started seeing food through her eyes and dangerously restricting my own eating, I had to break things off."

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Can we talk about friends for a sec? We hang with them, rely on them...and, occasionally, do shots with them. But what do you do when your friendships get in the way of your taking care of you? Many w...
Can we talk about friends for a sec? We hang with them, rely on them...and, occasionally, do shots with them. But what do you do when your friendships get in the way of your taking care of you? Many w...
Can we talk about friends for a sec? We hang with them, rely on them...and, occasionally, do shots with them. But what do you do when your friendships get in the way of your taking care of you? Many w...
Can we talk about friends for a sec? We hang with them, rely on them...and, occasionally, do shots with them. But what do you do when your friendships get in the way of your taking care of you? Many w...
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Otherday
Chief Imperial Sage, Earth, Milky Way Quadrant
04:19 PM on 02/13/2012
I told my teenaged son that his friends could very well be the most dangerous people he will ever meet. We talked about it and I told him a story about when I was 19. I was on a basketball team and I was friends with all of them, pretty much. We played for a small college and drove 2 vans to away games. One game was in the middle of winter on the frozen prairie, in the middle of nowhere, and on the way back I was stuffed in the back seat. My friends were driving. We were having fun. They drove in excess of 125 mph. It was night. Amid uproarious laugher, they turned the lights off. Our van was racing at 125 mph in complete darkness, the entire van roaring with merriment, howls and laughs. My "friends" drove like that for what it seemed an eternity - I was as petrified with fear as I have ever been in my life. The best part is that we didn't die in a screaming ball of flame. All those guys were "friends."
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07:57 PM on 02/12/2012
“My friend got me hooked on cocaineâ€

I hear this all the time. This attitude. "My dealer got me into it." or their boyfriend, or their husband. Sometimes people, especially addicts, do not want to take full responsibility.