I’m doing this critical analysis of a random research study I dredged out of the depths of some online peer-reviewed search engine. I just had to find something, anything, using race or ethnicity as a variable related to some nutrition topic.

The paper I decided to use, PURELY because it was only three pages long and I am desperate to get this done, was called “Activity, Inactivity, and Obesity: Racial, Ethnic, and Age Differences among Schoolgirls.” Sounds all fancy, eh? And written, no less, by six researchers (three doctors and two RDs among them.) Impressive-looking credentials too: Harvard Medical School & Harvard School of Public Health.

(Well, this doesn’t impress me since I know a little too much about Harvard’s JoAnn Manson and her secondary data analysis of The Nurse’s Health Study, which misrepresented the statistically insignificant correlation between BMI and mortality, resulting in dexfenfluramine approval by the FDA … remember? Dexfenfluramine? The stuff that, combined off-label with phentermine, caused fatal heart-valve defects and showed a whopping five-pound weight loss difference compared to placebo, and was later removed from the market after several people died while taking it? Remember that? Ah, the 90s …)

ANYWAY.

I read through this piece of research, and it slowly began to dawn on me that the study was a piece of utter shit.

They only studied girls. Why girls?

They studied ‘race/ethnicity’ without defining it whatsoever, or attempting to explore possible confounding cultural differences, whether certain groups were native-born or immigrated, and how acculturated those potential immigrants were…not to mention the socioeconomic status of visible minorities…

They reported an anomalous finding that “the least inactive girls were also the most obese,” but failed to explore this finding any further, and in fact, chose instead to throw this particular segment out to preserve their neat little positive association between inactivity and higher BMI…

And I was saying to myself, “Why is this study such a piece of shit? Why?”

So I discussed it with Nick (a big old science nut with a degree in biochemistry), who came over after his class (second degree in economics), and who has worked in pharmaceuticals for the past five years designing protocol for hard-core clinical trials that would make the researchers who designed THIS study run home, pants-less and bawling with shame. And he was saying, “You’re right. This paper is total shit. Huh. I don’t get it.” Then we drank coffee, and he went home.

Then I looked at the very back of the paper. In small print. Here’s what it says:

“This research was supported in part by Weight Watchers Foundations.”

Say WHAAA?

This paper was published in 1993. I happen to know, just by being the awesome person I am, that Weight Watchers, previous to the 1990s, marketed mainly to white women. Then they started marketing to Hispanic and African American women.

(Nauseatingly, they used the advertising hook that, in order for visible minorities to ‘get ahead in the business world’ they needed to starve themselves like white career gals.)

And I guess this explains why no attempt was made to study the boys. Boys don’t go to Weight Watchers!

This also explains why they didn’t feel the need to explore that inconvenient finding that fat girls were the LEAST inactive.

And why no clear Objectives or Conclusions were outlined in the report…

They’re OBVIOUS, silly: the objective is to find out more about different kinds of girls, so we can do some preemptive market segmentation, broadening our consumer base to include all those poor, formerly-neglected-by-compassionate-corporations minority groups. And the conclusion naturally follows that the women these girls will soon be need to lose weight…by going to Weight Watchers!

The survey was conducted in one small town in Massachusetts. It would not surprise me at ALL to find out that, soon after the results of this survey were compiled, Weight Watchers opened shop in that town.

Now, I knew that there was shoddy, bought-and-paid-for research out there, but I sort of considered it the exception rather than the rule. Yet, I managed to pick a Weight Watchers-funded paper (a HORRIBLY DONE paper at that, which was plainly obvious before I even knew who’d funded it) randomly? Out of all that research?

I’m beginning to think this is a lot more common than even I, a total cynic about objective research, imagined. This is frightening, and yet, totally exhilarating.