The research tradition on social relationships, social networks, and health dates back to the beginning of sociology. As exemplified in the classic work of Durkheim, Simmel, and Tönnies, social relationships and social networks play a double-edged—protective and detrimental—role for health. However, this double-edged role has been given unbalanced attention. In comparison to the salubrious role, the deleterious role has received less scrutiny and needs a focused review and conceptual integration. This article selectively reviews the post-2000 studies that demonstrate the harmful physical and mental health consequences of social relationships (intimate relationships and parenthood) and social networks. It uses a parsimonious three-category typology—structural forms, structural composition, and contents—to categorize relationship and network properties and proposes the social cost model, in contrast to the social resource model, to synthesize and integrate the adverse aspects of these properties. It concludes with future research directions.

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Combining the theory of social capital with work on three social factors, respectively, socioeconomic status (SES), gender, and lifestyle, this study examines four roles of accessed SES (network members’ SES) for body weight ratings: direct association, indirect association through lifestyle, mediating role in the relationship between SES and body weight ratings, and interaction with gender. Analyzing data from the 2004 U.S. General Social Survey, this study measures body weight ratings (visually evaluated by interviewers) and two indicators of accessed SES on the educational dimension (network members’ average education and proportion of network members with some college education or more). The results show evidence not for the direct role of accessed education but rather for its three other roles. More educated adults of both genders have access to more educated network members; those with more educated network members have a stronger athletic identity (a proximate indicator of lifestyle); and those with a more solid athletic identity have lower body weight ratings. Also, men with more educated network members have higher body weight ratings, but the opposite pattern applies to women. This study refines social capital theory and advances our understanding of network, socioeconomic, lifestyle, and gender disparities in body weight.

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