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Throwing out the baby with the bathwater?: Comparing 2 approaches to implausible values of change in body size.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Gray, CL; Robinson, WR
Published in: Epidemiology
July 2014

BACKGROUND: In childhood obesity research, the appearance of height loss, or "shrinkage," indicates measurement error. It is unclear whether a common response--excluding "shrinkers" from analysis--reduces bias. METHODS: Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we sampled 816 female adolescents (≥17 years) who had attained adult height by 1996 and for whom adult height was consistently measured in 2001 and 2008 ("gold-standard" height). We estimated adolescent obesity prevalence and the association of maternal education with adolescent obesity under 3 conditions: excluding shrinkers (for whom gold-standard height was less than recorded height in 1996), retaining shrinkers, and retaining shrinkers but substituting their gold-standard height. RESULTS: When we estimated obesity prevalence, excluding shrinkers decreased precision without improving validity. When we regressed obesity on maternal education, excluding shrinkers produced less valid and less precise estimates. CONCLUSION: In some circumstances, ignoring shrinkage is a better strategy than excluding shrinkers.

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Published In

Epidemiology

DOI

EISSN

1531-5487

Publication Date

July 2014

Volume

25

Issue

4

Start / End Page

591 / 594

Location

United States

Related Subject Headings

  • Weight Loss
  • United States
  • Research Design
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Obesity
  • Longitudinal Studies
  • Humans
  • Female
  • Epidemiology
  • Data Interpretation, Statistical
 

Citation

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Gray, C. L., & Robinson, W. R. (2014). Throwing out the baby with the bathwater?: Comparing 2 approaches to implausible values of change in body size. Epidemiology, 25(4), 591–594. https://doi.org/10.1097/EDE.0000000000000111
Gray, Christine L., and Whitney R. Robinson. “Throwing out the baby with the bathwater?: Comparing 2 approaches to implausible values of change in body size.Epidemiology 25, no. 4 (July 2014): 591–94. https://doi.org/10.1097/EDE.0000000000000111.
Gray, Christine L., and Whitney R. Robinson. “Throwing out the baby with the bathwater?: Comparing 2 approaches to implausible values of change in body size.Epidemiology, vol. 25, no. 4, July 2014, pp. 591–94. Pubmed, doi:10.1097/EDE.0000000000000111.

Published In

Epidemiology

DOI

EISSN

1531-5487

Publication Date

July 2014

Volume

25

Issue

4

Start / End Page

591 / 594

Location

United States

Related Subject Headings

  • Weight Loss
  • United States
  • Research Design
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Obesity
  • Longitudinal Studies
  • Humans
  • Female
  • Epidemiology
  • Data Interpretation, Statistical