Skinner Asheley Cockrell, Heymsfield Steven B, Pietrobelli Angelo, Faith Myles S, Allison David B
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, USA.
Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, USA.
Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. 2015 May 7;12:56. doi: 10.1186/s12966-015-0212-6.
Childhood obesity remains a substantial health concern for our population and thoughtful attempts to develop and evaluate the utility of programs to reduce childhood obesity levels are needed. Unfortunately, we believe the conclusion by Burke et al. that the HealthMPowers program produces positive change in body composition is incorrect because the results obtained are likely due to regression to the mean (RTM), a well-known threat to the validity of studies that is often overlooked. Using empirical data, we demonstrate that RTM is likely to be the cause for the changes reported. A more reasonable conclusion than the one of effectiveness the authors offered would be that the results did not support the effectiveness of the intervention. Public health officials, parents, school leaders, community leaders, and regulators need and deserve valid evidence free from spin on which they can base decisions.
儿童肥胖仍然是我们人口面临的一个重大健康问题，因此需要进行深入思考，以开发和评估旨在降低儿童肥胖水平的项目的效用。不幸的是，我们认为伯克等人得出的“健康力量”项目能使身体成分产生积极变化的结论是错误的，因为所获得的结果可能是由于均值回归（RTM），这是一个对研究有效性的众所周知的威胁，却常常被忽视。通过实证数据，我们证明均值回归很可能是所报告变化的原因。比作者提出的有效性结论更合理的结论是，这些结果并不支持该干预措施的有效性。公共卫生官员、家长、学校领导、社区领导和监管机构需要并理应获得无偏见的有效证据，以便他们能够据此做出决策。
