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The article makes Wansink seem negligent and/or incompetent. Also, the embedded "CBS This Morning" video is cringeworthy. It appears that the recommendations in

by js2 10y ago

The article makes Wansink seem negligent and/or incompetent. Also, the embedded "CBS This Morning" video is cringeworthy. It appears that the recommendations in his book amount to "study normal weight people; do what they do." Isn't that fraught with survivorship bias? Do the recommendations in his book control for people that have the same habits but still end up overweight? Anecdote: my household is a family of four. Myself and my wife, and our two teenage kids, daughter and son. Since we live together, the answers to the 10 questions on http://www.slimbydesign.com/get-scored/ http://www.slimbydesign.com/get-scored/ are the same for the household. My son and I are normal weight. My wife and daughter are overweight. Conclusion: weight has very little to do with the design of your kitchen. Caveat: this conclusion has not been peer reviewed and is not scientifically sound.

closed 10y ago
Wansink strikes me as an extremely bright, creative researcher. His problem seems to be that he didn't collaborate with people who were strong methodologists. If anything, he reminds me of a lot of brilliant researchers, who are too confident in their methodological prowess. (And this is the outcome that should have been avoided through collaboration).
killedbydeath 10y ago
Well that's a lot of data you have there. I did some GLM analysis and clearly weight is correlated with gender. Let me go tell some journalists.
npsimons 10y ago
> Isn't that fraught with survivorship bias? It is, but it's not a completely invalid starting point. Even better is to study people who were once fat, but lost weight and keep it off. This is what the National Weight Control Registry does. It's similar to studies that have tried to pin down why marriages fail. Most studies focus on what went wrong in failed marriages, but some of the most helpful suggestions have come from what people who stay married do. > My son and I are normal weight. My wife and daughter are overweight. Do your wife and daughter eat the same portions as you and your son? It's a common complaint of women, who are on average shorter than men and therefore need fewer calories, that they can't eat as much as their significant others.
- js2 10y ago
  > Do your wife and daughter eat the same portions as you and your son No. I expand on that a bit here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14196631 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14196631

by js2 10y ago

closed 10y ago

Wansink strikes me as an extremely bright, creative researcher. His problem seems to be that he didn't collaborate with people who were strong methodologists. If anything, he reminds me of a lot of brilliant researchers, who are too confident in their methodological prowess. (And this is the outcome that should have been avoided through collaboration).

killedbydeath 10y ago

Well that's a lot of data you have there. I did some GLM analysis and clearly weight is correlated with gender. Let me go tell some journalists.

npsimons 10y ago

> Isn't that fraught with survivorship bias? It is, but it's not a completely invalid starting point. Even better is to study people who were once fat, but lost weight and keep it off. This is what the National Weight Control Registry does. It's similar to studies that have tried to pin down why marriages fail. Most studies focus on what went wrong in failed marriages, but some of the most helpful suggestions have come from what people who stay married do. > My son and I are normal weight. My wife and daughter are overweight. Do your wife and daughter eat the same portions as you and your son? It's a common complaint of women, who are on average shorter than men and therefore need fewer calories, that they can't eat as much as their significant others.

js2 10y ago
> Do your wife and daughter eat the same portions as you and your son No. I expand on that a bit here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14196631 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14196631