Gaps in Measuring Behaviors That Contribute to Obesity

Everybody knows the behaviors that cause obesity, right? Wrong. It turns out that we’re a couple of steps away from that knowledge. A new study in the Journal of Public Health points out that we’re not even particularly good at measuring behaviors thought to contribute to obesity. Without good measurements, we can’t even be confident of associations between behaviors and obesity outcomes. And even then, with well-documented associations, important work remains to resolve questions about what’s causing what.

Denise Alexander and colleagues across Europe collaborated on the Scientific Platform Project on Lifestyle Determinants of Obesity and found major gaps in surveillance of behavioral factors thought to be important for understanding childhood obesity. They conclude:

The true causes of the childhood obesity epidemic remain undiscovered, and the ability of research to identify effective prevention and treatment methods is compromised.

Bummer.

The situation is certainly no better in the U.S., where policy decisions routinely rely upon self-reports of diet and physical activity that are well-understood to be “an inadequate basis for scientific conclusions.”

Some people see these concerns as tedious. “Policy research is uniquely challenging and difficult. It requires a different standard of evidence,” we are told.

Pragmatism is important. Pragmatism without good evidence behind it is foolhardy.

Click here to read the study in the Journal of Public Health and here to read more on the subject from ConscienHealth.

Misty Behaviors, photograph © Emmanuele Contini / flickr

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