For instance, we used to think that the main cause of obesity was a poor diet at an individual level, leading to treatments focused on the individual. However, taking a networked thinking approach in a 32-year-long study with over 12,000 people led researchers to discover that the participants’ personal network had a great impact on their likelihood to be obese. “Discernible clusters of obese persons were present in the network at all time points,” write the researchers.