The Obesity Rate for Children Has Not Plummeted

Speak for yourself, please.
I read more about science than I do damned sports.

 

Most don't. You'd think the Times' science correspondent might. Sadly, her degree is in Russian Studies, and she's a former foreign correspondent.

But, the rest of the media defers to the Times take. They don't even try to render their own judgement of the findings in the study -- or even read the study to see where it says, "“Overall, there have been no significant changes in obesity prevalence in youth or adults between 2003-2004 and 2011-2012."

So it's a lack of understanding and laziness. Repeating someone else's reporting is not the same thing as actual reporting.

And, that's what lets an organization like the Times (or, in other cases PR firms), write the narrative, and advance an agenda, under the guise of news.

 

Work smarter, not harder.

Do more with less.

 

Disagree.

The failure here had nothing to do with not understanding science. It had to do with impatience and reading comprehension.

 

Or, the desire to push an agenda.

 

The uppity mean black woman with a big caboose in the "Kill Whitey" video is going to force our kids to give up their Twinkies and eat celery sticks. We want our countree back.

 

The question is who has the reading comprehension problem. I read the article when it appeared in the newspaper. I don't know if this is identical to the version I read, but this is the one available on-line and is consistent with what I remember reading http://nyti.ms/1cwGf7m It says this:

It explicitly states the drop was among 2 - 5 year olds. It goes on to explain the importance of improvements in obesity rates at this age.

I did not find it difficult to understand that the 43% drop was not among "youth and young adults." Slate is correct that the article didn't talk about the lack of improvements in those age groups but that wasn't the point of the article.

 

Well, yeah, but that's 'cause you're not playing fair. Reading articles carefully, taking into account what they actually say ... we can't have that sort of thing 'round here.

 

Yes, but a 43 percent drop in "rate" is deliberately misleading. It's a 6% drop -- from 14 to 8 -- in actual percentage of obese 2-to-5 year-olds.

I can't prove the process of how the NYT ran this; I merely go by the experience of what I've seen in shops where I've worked. It's usually a press release that touts the most significant finding of the study, with a page of key conclusions, along with an invitation to read the whole study. The tout gets play, the methodology of the study or even the margin for error doesn't.

If NYT understood all this and still chose to make a minor point, then I'd have to say, yes, there's something behind it.

 

That's ridiculous. A 43% drop in the relative risk is a 43% drop in the relative risk. It's not misleading at all.

Per your logic, since people in the U.S. face about a 1.5% lifetime risk of developing pancreatic cancer, if someone figured out how to cut that in half, that wouldn't be a big deal -- in your words, it'd be a "minor point" -- because it'd be "only" a 0.75% decrease in absolute risk.