Why Going to Church Can Make You Fat

Main Task: Analyze Statistics in the News In your activity resources above are three news articles that report on scientific studies and make recommendations on the basis of them. Write a paper analyzing these articles. For each article answer these questions and give reasons for your answers: Why Going to Church Can Make You Fat 1. What evidence does the article provide for an association (correlation) between the phenomena discussed? According to the data provided from the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Youth Adults study provided by the researchers at Northwestern University, people who went to church at least once a week were more than twice as likely as people with no religious involvement to become obese. In addition, previous and or past research noted a correlation between religiosity and weight gain. 2. Drawing on your text’s discussion of how to interpret correlations, what would you want to check to be confident that there is actually a correlation? We would want to know what causes weight gain, what population was sampled, what was the average age group being studied, what religious entities were analyzed, what situations may have taken place that provided a situation to intake unhealthy foods, what other cultural practices occurred, what other practices lead to (caused) increased weight gain, what other kind of social events may have taken place where food was being served? 3. What is the argument that the relationship is causal? The most common kind of evaluation everyone encounters is testing of a causal model. This is the measure property of an individual. Causal models are typically evaluated, initially, with data that describe an association or correlation between variables. The mere suggestion, that religious activities somehow promote weight gain is in itself a casual implication without any further substantiating data being provided. 4. Is the argument for the causal relationship convincing? In my opinion, in this particular case it is quite convincing. Previous research has been done that concurred with the ideology that those who attended church likely had more interactions within social networks, therefore providing more opportunities to entertain with food. 5. If the argument is not convincing, what additional evidence is needed to make a convincing argument that the relationship is causal? Although, the study of a smaller sampling will be easier to work with, it cannot possibly provide or represent the entire population exactly. We would want to know the sample proportions relative to a close or normal distribution, and its mean that would be closer to the population proportion. 6. Does it make sense to make changes in your life based on the article? In my particular situation, it would make sense to change in my life, because when you know better you do better. Also, the information being provided offers informed information and thus causing awareness. Why Having Kids Is Bad for Your Health 1. What evidence does the article provide for an association (correlation) between the phenomena discussed? The evidence provided in this study does offer some evidence of the correlation between moms and their counterparts as it relates to health issues. The researchers focused on some sample that we can look at with hope that it will be representative of the population. 2. Drawing on your text’s discussion of how to interpret correlations, what would you want to check to be confident that there is actually a correlation? More concisely, we would want to check the margin of error for the sample mean, population mean or population standard deviation. Without it we cannot know the true range in which 95% of all sample means would lie. Also, we should ask ourselves does this statement make sense? 3. What is the argument that the relationship is causal? Lead researcher in this study said that “All parents can relate to the idea of demands and trade-offs”. Rochman, B. (2011, April 11) although however, I’m not certain that the aforementioned statement that “All” parents can relate is in fact accurate or not, I do agree somewhat with the notion that parents do have a desire to do better but for other reasons stated cannot prepare healthier meals. 4. Is the argument for the causal relationship convincing? This particular example is convincing enough, in that I can identify with what is being said. Even though, there are certainly other variables that could also yield the same results having children can definitely be a contributing factor. Notably, the time that once was allocated for exercise and other healthy activities is now being pushed aside to deal with the daily demands of parenting. 7. If the argument is not convincing, what additional evidence is needed to make a convincing argument that the relationship is causal? A clear visual of the interpretation of this idea would make this argument more convincing. The use of the 95% confidence interval can be very useful with proper interpretation. Also, determining what other activities the parentless subject were participating in that the parents were not would also help to identify other probable variables. 5. Does it make sense to make changes in your life based on the article? Changing your life after reading this article may not be an issue if you have already been affected by this scenario. Personally, I can identify and or can relate to this claim therefore, it would make sense to just make the best of the situation that is already at hand. On other hand if this has not already happened to you that you can in fact be proactive and informed and attempt to make better decisions. The Link Between Sleep and Weight 1. What evidence does the article provide for an association (correlation) between the phenomena discussed? A recent study following a group of 40-60 year old women for five to seven years whilst tracking their weight and sleeping patterns found that women who reported having trouble falling asleep, waking up frequently at night , or having trouble staying asleep were significantly more likely to have “major weight gain”. 2. Drawing on your text’s discussion of how to interpret correlations, what would you want to check to be confident that there is actually a correlation? You would want to know if there were other underlying issues that also contributed to the weight gain and or the lack of sleep. Therefore the sampling distributions would be useful information when making these types of claims. 3. What is the argument that the relationship is causal? According to Kakar sleep is associated with body weight for two reasons. 1. First, people who are sleep-deprived may have less energy throughout the day and therefore less motivation to exercise regularly. 2. In fact, people who don’t sleep enough report getting less excessive than people who get enough sleep every night. 4. Is the argument for the causal relationship convincing? Yes, this argument is convincing because other research and studies have implicated that when the body sleeps or is at rest that it heals and process foods more efficiently. Therefore, it is a high probability that this claim is in fact valid to some degree. 5. If the argument is not convincing, what additional evidence is needed to make a convincing argument that the relationship is causal? The additional evidence needed to make argument more convincing would be to show how in other cases sleep has lead to other ailments. In addition, provide data showing where those who got more sleep had better BMI than their counterparts. 6. Does it make sense to make changes in your life based on the article? Yes, in this instance like the others it is always best to make better decisions and choices you have been informed and enlighten about particular subject matters. In conclusion, cause and correlation are often misinterpreted or misconstrued. Correlation is a relationship between two or more subjects: when one increases, the other increases, or when one increases, the other decreases. On the other hand cause is something that is the result. The most significant point is that a correlation between two things does not definitely mean that one causes the other. If there is a relationship between two phenomena, A and B, it could be that A causes B, or it could be that B is responsible for A; other possibilities are that some other element is the reason or cause for both A and B, or that they have independent causes that are the same. References BENNETT, BRIGGS, TRIOLA (2013). Statistical Reasoning for Everyday Life. ,, 1-77. McCoy, Krisha, MS (2010). Studies show that skimping on sleep may lead to weight gain. But can getting shut-eye help you lose weight?. The Link Between Sleep and Weight, , 1. Retrieved from http://w ww.everydayhealth.com/sleep/101/tips/snooze-control-suggested-for-overweight-children.aspx Park, Alice (2011). Why Going to Church Can Make You Fat. Behavior, , . Retrieved from http://healthland.time.com/2011/03/24/why-go ing-to-church-can-make-you-fat/ Rockman, Bonnie (2011). Why Having Kids Is Bad for Your Health. Parenting, , . Retrieved from http://healthland.time.com/2011/0 4/11/is-parenthood-bad-for-your-health/?iid=WBeditorspicks Shaoxu, S., & Lei, C. (n.d). Editorial: Efficient discovery of similarity constraints for matching dependencies. Data & Knowledge Engineering, 87146-166. doi:10.1016/j.datak.2013.06.003 Trevor, C., Dominic, W., Roger W., S., Peter, D., & Thomas C., R. (n.d). Discovering discovery patterns with predication-based Semantic Indexing. Journal Of Biomedical Informatics, 451049-1065. doi:10.1016/j.jbi.2012.07.003 Tomasallo, C. D., Hanrahan, L. P., Tandias, A., Chang, T. S., Cowan, K. J., & Guilbert, T. W. (2014). Estimating Wisconsin Asthma Prevalence Using Clinical Electronic Health Records and Public Health Data. American Journal Of Public Health, 104(1), e65-e73. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2013.301396 Auto Detailing Supplies Inc.