A study published last week by the New England Journal of Medicine made headline news across the country. The study claimed that a person’s chance of becoming obese increased by 57 percent if one had a friend who became obese during a given time period. If the friend was of the same sex, the odds of becoming obese jumped by 71 percent. If, on the other hand, one associated with people committed to losing weight, the odds of one slimming down likewise increased significantly.

None of these findings would have surprised that old cynic and master storyteller W. Somerset Maugham, who described the same phenomenon over 60 years ago in his wickedly amusing short story, “The Three Fat Women of Antibes.”

The story concerns three women friends –- each single, fortyish, fat and rich -- who rent a house together on the French Riviera. Their aim is to reinforce each other’s commitment to diet and exercise and to indulge in their shared passion for bridge.

The experiment in weight loss goes well until one member of the group proposes that they invite a recently-widowed friend named Lena Finch to join the party for a couple of weeks. Since Lena is also fortyish, on a diet and a bridge-player, the other members of the party –- thrilled at the prospect of having a fourth at bridge -- eagerly assent to her coming.

Lena duly arrives, and immediately puts the three fat women under an enormous strain. Yes, she’s on a diet, but since she’s naturally thin, and has grown thinner since her husband’s death, the diet is intended to help her gain rather than lose weight.

The doctor has ordered Lena to eat bread and butter, cream, potatoes and all the other rich foods that the three fat women have had to deny themselves. “You’ll get simply enormous,” one of the trio warns Lena.

“No I shan’t,” Lena replies gaily. “You see, nothing ever makes me fat. I’ve always eaten everything I wanted to and it’s never had the slightest effect on me.”

General consternation seizes the three heavyweights in the party.

With undisguised relish, Maugham describes the torture to which Lena unwittingly subjects her calorie-counting companions: “They ate grilled fish while Lena ate macaroni sizzling with cheese and butter; they ate grilled cutlets and boiled spinach while Lena ate pate de foie gras; twice a week they ate boiled eggs and raw tomatoes, while Lena ate peas swimming in cream and potatoes cooked up in all sorts of delicious ways. The chef was a good chef and he leapt at the opportunity afforded him to send up one dish more rich, tasty and succulent than the other.”

By the time Lena’s visit draws to a close, the other three women are so eaten up with frustration and envy that they can barely be civil to each other. Harmony is restored only when they give up dieting altogether and go back to gorging themselves on the rich foods they enjoy so much.

The New England Journal of Medicine had to make a detailed study of over 12,000 people to conclude that our friends can make us fat. Maugham drew the same conclusion over sixty years ago, using nothing more than his shrewd observation of human nature and an acid-dipped pen.

His story is unfashionable today. It is sexist, misogynistic and even cruel. But it’s undeniably funny and, based on these latest findings, it’s apparently true.