Accuracy of Research - food for thought
in Baby
Hello Ladies
I know we all get heated in various discussions about research and how our delightful babies are affected when one does something different to yourself (myself included) but I thought I would post this as food for thought -
I am currently part of a study with me and DS1 (have been for 6 years) its with regards to cardi vascular disease and diabetes (sp?) would help if I could spell lol thank goodness thats not what the study is about lol
Any way last week we had our last round of bloods, tests etc etc and have been wearing 'activity monitors' for the past 6 days and I have extensive food questionnairs, activity questionnaires to complete.
Yesterday I forgot to put mine on (row with oh took up most of the morning so forgot) Forgot to put it on ds the other morning when he had a full morning of contstant activity in a play place, it has rained for 3 of the days that we have had these on so he has not been able to get out and play and I haven;t been able to get out for my walks...........sssssssssoooooo in my opinion through my own fault too the accuracy of our 6 days is not representative of what we actually do on a day to day basis and the food diary relys totally on me being honest and if I am honest I did consider leaving out the mcdonalds we had on Friday for a treat as I didn't want them to think I was bad LOL but I wi;l put it in.
The point of the post really is that next time we're all 'disputing' we should remember that research is usually conducted on average jo's like my good self who are only human and 'forget' or may want to 'impress' the dr's etc and fudge the forms - not saying in any way at all not to follow guidelines as I mayself do but it really opened my eyes this time round at the hospital as to just how easy it is for results to be skewed and affected.
any way hope you enjoyed my story lol lol have a nice day girls xx
(in the interests of research I have put on a wee letter detailing the days etc I forgot to put the things on and what we did in case this is of some help lol lol)
I know we all get heated in various discussions about research and how our delightful babies are affected when one does something different to yourself (myself included) but I thought I would post this as food for thought -
I am currently part of a study with me and DS1 (have been for 6 years) its with regards to cardi vascular disease and diabetes (sp?) would help if I could spell lol thank goodness thats not what the study is about lol
Any way last week we had our last round of bloods, tests etc etc and have been wearing 'activity monitors' for the past 6 days and I have extensive food questionnairs, activity questionnaires to complete.
Yesterday I forgot to put mine on (row with oh took up most of the morning so forgot) Forgot to put it on ds the other morning when he had a full morning of contstant activity in a play place, it has rained for 3 of the days that we have had these on so he has not been able to get out and play and I haven;t been able to get out for my walks...........sssssssssoooooo in my opinion through my own fault too the accuracy of our 6 days is not representative of what we actually do on a day to day basis and the food diary relys totally on me being honest and if I am honest I did consider leaving out the mcdonalds we had on Friday for a treat as I didn't want them to think I was bad LOL but I wi;l put it in.
The point of the post really is that next time we're all 'disputing' we should remember that research is usually conducted on average jo's like my good self who are only human and 'forget' or may want to 'impress' the dr's etc and fudge the forms - not saying in any way at all not to follow guidelines as I mayself do but it really opened my eyes this time round at the hospital as to just how easy it is for results to be skewed and affected.
any way hope you enjoyed my story lol lol have a nice day girls xx
(in the interests of research I have put on a wee letter detailing the days etc I forgot to put the things on and what we did in case this is of some help lol lol)
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Replies
I always wonder about the research and evidence about breastfeeding. I breastfed for 9 months and would defend it to anyone as the 'normal' natural thing to do, but how can the evidence take into account all the other factors? e.g - IQ or obesity later in life - how can we know that's down to just breast milk? Maybe a woman who breastfeeds would be more likely to be educated/feed healthy food anyway? Off on a tangent, but just as an example of questioning research rather than blindly accepting it. (if anyone can answer that I am genuinely interested by the way)
Also, with a lot of studies that come out, when you look to see who paid for it, it's a big pharmaceutical company with a BIG agenda to sell something. So when a study comes out saying the evidence says we should all be giving our babies vitamins look to see who's conducted the study - a big vitamin company?!
I could waffle about this all day!
Ooooo, i feel a mammoth thread coming on!!!
Em x
Having said that, I work at a big research institution and any GOOD research has bias and false answers factored into the results equation. They have formulas and percentages which take into account which probability of the responses are not entirely true, so they use this to alter results accordingly before publishing. It is of course not an exact science too, but good researchers will try to avoid the situations you mention above! For extremely important research, such as drug testing, theses tests are repeated many times over with different people and until they see if a pattern / average result is formed, they should not be made public xxx
My view is you can only really usefully and meaningfully quote research if you've read the whole paper and understand what it means in full, and that the key phrase is 'research SUGGESTS...'
Guidelines are useful though, but interpretation is open to change and adaptation as new evidence comes to light.
Good thread!