You’d tell the truth, of course, but what about others?
So I’m reading a blog post by Gallup about how at least 20 percent of Americans in all 50 states are obese – see the map — and I’m stopped in my 180-pound tracks by this sentence: “Gallup and (partner) Healthways track obesity daily in the United States and will report full-year results for 2011 in early 2012.” (Emphasis mine.)
(This was online news on 9/11)
Daily? What does daily mean? How exactly is obesity tracked daily? I’m picturing hordes of obese people filing into Gallup weigh stations every day, but certainly such cannot be the case. So I send an email to Gallup’s public relations department … and get this reply from Alyssa Brown, a Gallup consulting specialist:
Here is an explanation of how Gallup and Healthways track obesity daily:
Gallup interviews 1,000 U.S. adults each day regarding various political, economic, and wellbeing topics as part of Gallup Daily tracking. Gallup conducts interviews by telephone 350 days per year. The results, which encompass the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, are reported in daily, weekly, and monthly averages and in Gallup.com stories. Obesity rates from the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index are based on respondents’ self-reports of their height and weight, which are used to calculate Body Mass Index (BMI) scores. Americans who have a BMI of 30 or higher are classified as “obese.”
Please feel free to let me know if you have any questions.
I did have another question: Since the respondents self-report their weight — and people are not always candid about how much they weigh — does Gallup make any adjustments to the numbers to take into account that tendency?
Brown’s answer: “No, Gallup does not make any adjustments.”
Fair enough, but doesn’t that almost certainly mean that Americans are even fatter than Gallup’s findings suggest?
I didn’t dare ask.
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