The Mediterranean diet doesn't just help you lose weight - everyone around you gets healthier too

• Following a Mediterranean diet could improve your health - and your family's, a study suggests.
• Researchers found family members of dieters ate healthier and lost weight without actively trying.
• This suggests sharing meals with people you love could be a helpful strategy for healthier eating.

Trying the popular, healthy Mediterranean diet could benefit not just you, but everyone you live with, new research suggests.

Family members of people who followed a Mediterranean diet lost weight and improved their eating habits, even without doing a specific diet program themselves, according to a study published March 3 in the International Journal of Obesity.

The Mediterranean diet, based on traditional eating patterns in countries like Spain, Italy, and Greece, is one of the most researched and praised diets for healthy eating. It's been linked to benefits for weight loss, hormone regulation (including insulin, to help manage or prevent diabetes), healthy digestion, and better physical and mental health as you age.

Researchers from the Hospital del Mar and other medical research institutes in Spain looked at 114 family members of participants in a study on obesity and the Mediterranean diet. The study participants were instructed to follow a calorie-restricted Mediterranean diet with regular one-on-one coaching and group support sessions.

Their family members - including partners, children, parents, and siblings - never received any specific guidance on the diet, or information about weight loss.

By the end of the two years, however, the diet-adjacent family members had also started eating Mediterranean-style meals and lost weight.

Healthy eating could be contagious (in a good way)

Researchers theorize that the "halo effect" of healthy eating spreads through the entire household when people cook and eat meals together.

The study supports this concept, finding that family members were most likely to experience the benefits if they shared more than one meal a day with their dieting relatives.

The halo effect was even stronger when the person following the Mediterranean diet also did the household cooking, suggesting they prepared healthier meals for the whole family.

And 20% of the diet participants said their spouse even joined them in their regular counseling sessions.

"The effect was contagious, in this context it was, fortunately, a beneficial 'contagion', resulting in weight loss and improved dietary habits," Dr. Albert Goday, the principal investigator on the project and a researcher at Hospital Del Mar, said in a press release.

Not all healthy habits have knock-on effects, though.

The dieters were also encouraged to do regular physical activity as part of their weight loss plan. Researchers found that this didn't translate to family members exercising more, suggesting fitness might not be quite as infectious as healthy eating.