Public and health professionals' misconceptions about the dynamics of body weight gain/loss
Author
Abdel-Hamid, Tarek
Ankel, Felix
Battle-Fisher, Michele
Gibson, Bryan
Gonzalez-Parra, Gilberto
Jalali, Mohammad
Kaipainen, Kirsikka
Kalupahana, Nishan
Karanfil, Ozge
Marathe, Achla
Martinson, Brian
McKelvey, Karma
Sarbadhikari, Suptendra Nath
Pintauro, Stephen
Poucheret, Patrick
Pronk, Nicolaas
Qian, Ying
Sazonov, Edward
Van Oorschot, Kim
Venkitasubramanian, Akshay
Murphy, Philip
Date
2014Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Human body energy storage operates as a stock-and-flow system with inflow (food intake) and outflow
(energy expenditure). In spite of the ubiquity of stock-and-flow structures, evidence suggests that
human beings fail to understand stock accumulation and rates of change, a difficulty called the
stock–flow failure. This study examines the influence of health care training and cultural background
in overcoming stock–flow failure. A standardized protocol assessed lay people’s and health care
professionals’ ability to apply stock-and-flow reasoning to infer the dynamics of weight gain/loss
during the holiday season (621 subjects from seven countries). Our results indicate that both types
of subjects exhibited systematic errors indicative of use of erroneous heuristics. Indeed 76% of lay subjects
and 71% of health care professionals failed to understand the simple dynamic impact of energy
intake and energy expenditure on body weight. Stock–flow failure was found across cultures and was
not improved by professional health training. The problem of stock–flow failure as a transcultural global
issue with education and policy implications is discussed.
Description
The article of record as published may be located at http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/sdr.1517
Rights
This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.Collections
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
Modeling the dynamics of human energy regulation and its implications for obesity treatment
Abdel-Hamid, Tarek K. (2002);Obesity has reached epidemic proportions in the United States and is threatening to become a global epidemic. Even more concerning, the incidence of overweight continues to increase. The health consequences and economic ... -
Molecular dynamics simulation of fatigue damage in metals
Lunt, William S. (Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate School, 2003-12);Molecular dynamics simulation was conducted to better understand the mechanism of fatigue failure and to identify a parameter(s) that can indicated progressive damage due to cyclic loading. The Embedded Atom Method (EAM) ... -
Homeland Security Affairs Journal, Volume II - 2006: Issue 3, October
Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security (CHDS) (Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate SchoolCenter for Homeland Defense and Security, 2006-10);October 2006. Welcome to Volume 2, Issue Three of Homeland Security Affairs. This issue is dedicated to the memory of Lacy Suiter. I believe Lacy would be embarrassed by the idea of dedicating an issue of anything to him. ...