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| Science sidelined in the government-PR-media frenzy | Alexander Holmes and Jonathan Mendel The Science: So What? campaign is a classic example of how bad science is ignored when agencies are only interested in audience impactUnder the previous government, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) ran a campaign called Science: So What? So Everything (SSW). It was designed to encourage young people via websites, media reports and special events, to be inspired by the contributions of science to their lives.The SSW campaign was not without problems. The project included a website that was expensive and inefficient and got little traffic for a campaign of this type. And then there were serious concerns about the quality of some of the research that BIS was promoting. In particular, a report on future jobs in science by the Fast Future consultancy was heavily promoted during the campaign despite failing to meet some basic standards.Both the department and its SSW campaign have come under fire from researchers in public and in private. We were interested in how BIS responded internally to these criticisms, which sought to improve their activities. So we submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to find out.Good quality research depends upon robust, critical appraisal. As BIS is a major player in the UK's research work – and as the SSW campaign was intended to promote science, technology, engineering and mathematics – we hoped the department would reflect the standards that contribute to the UK's reputation for excellent research. We hoped, for example, that since the department plays a role in assessing the quality of research in UK universities the studies it commissioned itself would be robust. Our findings are not encouraging. They suggest BIS did not respond appropriately to concerns about the SSW campaign and that their way of measuring success was questionable.The report on future jobs in science was commissioned and promoted as part of the SSW campaign by BIS, under the former business secretary, Lord Mandelson . The report was garlanded with supportive statements from the former science minister, Lord Drayson, and even the former prime minister, Gordon Brown.As soon as the report was released, major concerns were raised by bloggers and academics about such things as the methodology, the inappropriate use of Wikipedia and implausible claims about nanotechnology. These serious issues were largely missed by the mainstream media, beyond a blog on the Guardian's science website and an article in the Times Higher Education Supplement that criticised the report.The Conservative party – then in opposition – failed to challenge the report effectively. It even issued a press release that added further errors. For example, it argued that a worldwide survey used for the report "determined that 'Virtual Lawyer' is the fantasy job which people in Africa, Peru and Pakistan think is 'likely to be the best paid'." But as the Fast Future report makes clear, this was based on responses from only one person in Peru and one in Pakistan. It would be rather tenuous to assume their compatriots share their views. It is unfortunate that the Conservative party's criticisms of such a flawed document were themselves so ill conceived. More worryingly, the press release went out with David Willetts's name in the headline along with a lengthy quote. Willetts is now minister for universities and science.When BIS evaluated the success of the future jobs report, it used media coverage as a gauge and all but dismissed any criticisms. Our FOIA request shows that the PR agency Kindred (which worked for BIS on the project) noted that the report achieved "178 pieces of coverage across national, regional, consumer and online media … A combined OTS [opportunities to see] of 60,985,597 … An AEV [Advertising Equivalent Value] of £2,248,866". This is a poor measure of success in science communication. Public understanding of and engagement with science cannot usefully be measured by column inches in the press, without also considering the accuracy and efficacy of the project in question.There were also crude attempts to assess the online impact of coverage of the Future Jobs report. Kindred said the story "generated a seven-fold increase in volume of traffic to the campaign website". The increase raised the traffic to "7,733 website hits during the six days after the launch of the activity (compared to 1,167 website hits for the same period before the activity launch)". For a campaign aimed at millions of young people and backed by a £1m-plus budget, this trumpeted increase is pathetic.In dealing with criticisms, BIS and Kindred focused on managing negative publicity rather than on correcting mistakes or meaningful engagement with critics. For example, when the nanotechnology blogger James Hayton criticised the Fast Future report, an email exchange supplied in response to our FOIA request argued that "James' blog isn't particularly well known … Not that this means his criticisms aren't well-founded, but I doubt appeasement will be a worthwhile strategy". The emails are so heavily redacted it is impossible to know whether the comment was from a civil servant or a BIS contractor. In deciding whether to respond to Hayton's blog, these email exchanges gave considerably more attention to whether Hayton's criticisms would appear on the Guardian's science blog and how to distance BIS from any criticism than was given to the accuracy and significance of his points: "Given the reach of the Guardian blog, we believe that it is a worthwhile exercise for Rohit [Talwar, the author of the Future Jobs report] to provide some form of response." The email exchange states that "while tacitly looking over Rohit's response, it needs to come from him (rather than Kindred, and certainly not BIS)".Responses to mainstream media criticism of BIS's practice were no better. In response to the Times Higher Education Supplement article, BIS emphasised the "speculative" nature of the research behind the future jobs report. It was left to Talwar to claim that the approach taken is "accepted best practice in horizon scanning". The importance of the THES article was downplayed, with one email exchange citing a single tweet stating that "Jonathan Mendel [quoted in the THES article criticising the future jobs report] is a prat" as evidence that there was little interest in the story. Substantive criticisms from the THES article and elsewhere were not addressed in the documents supplied to us.When preparing a statement on the response to the future jobs report for then science minister, Lord Drayson, a draft saying that the "vast majority" of coverage of the campaign was positive was revised with the effect of marginalising criticism further. The final version simply stated that the campaign "has generated a great deal of positive coverage". Failures by BIS to uphold basic standards raise concerns about how they engage with the professions within their remit and are frankly embarrassing for those of us who work within and are keen to promote the UK's excellent research sector.While BIS failed to redact Hayton's name from the documents released to us and left at least one other individual easily identifiable, they redacted so much from the email exchanges that it is not always clear which organisation is saying what. This is hardly in line with the government's claim that "transparency across all departments [is] a necessary and important part of making government more accountable". We appreciate it can be important to protect the identities of individuals, but there is a public interest in knowing whether particular statements were made by government departments or by contracted organisations.What stood out in the documents BIS released to us was how government, PR agencies and mainstream media worked as a closed and vicious circle. The government commissioned and promoted bad research; PR agencies promoted this to the media and the media overwhelmingly reported the government line. The project was then deemed a success because of the positive media coverage. Critical engagement with research and appropriate analysis of the tools, goals and achievements of research communication were marginalised. Given the damaging nature of such vicious circles, there is a danger that poor policies and practices will go unchallenged because critics are frozen out.We hope the new government will engage better with researchers. This means being open to a genuine dialogue and listening to constructive criticism. Before the election, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats emphasised the need for evidence-based policy, but we have yet to see convincing signs that this is happening. Promises of engagement and evidenced-based policy seem to have become less of a priority than ensuring that mantras of cuts, austerity and reform remain in the headlines.Alexander Holmes is a biologistJonathan Mendel is a lecturer in Human Geography at the University of DundeeScience policyPolitics and technologyLiberal-Conservative coalitionPeter MandelsonLabourFreedom of informationAlexander Holmesguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Why exercise won't make you thin Got a few pounds to lose? Cancel the gym membership. An increasing body of research reveals that exercise does next to nothing for you when it comes to losing weight. A result for couch potatoes, yes, but also one that could have serious implications for the government's long-term health strategyMy mum used to complain that she couldn't lose weight. A size 18 and a couple of stone heavier than ideal, she tried in vain for years to shed the extra. Every week she headed to the gym, where she pounded the treadmill like a paratrooper, often three times a week. Most days she took the dog for a brisk, hour-long walk. She didn't eat unhealthily – the rest of the family ate exactly the same meals, and did a fraction of the exercise she did. She ought to have been the slimmest of the bunch: that she remained overweight was a frustration to her, and a mystery to all of us.From StairMasters to kettlebells, Rosemary Conley to Natalie Cassidy, we understand and expect that getting in shape is going to require serious effort on our part – and the reverse is true, too, that we expect exercise to pay back the hours of boring, sweaty graft with a leaner, lighter body. Since the days of the Green Goddess, we've known that the healthiest way to lose weight is through exercise. It's science, isn't it?Well, science has some bad news for you. More and more research in both the UK and the US is emerging to show that exercise has a negligible impact on weight loss. That tri-weekly commitment to aerobics class? Almost worthless, as far as fitting into your bikini is concerned. The Mayo Clinic, a not-for-profit medical research establishment in the US, reports that, in general, studies "have demonstrated no or modest weight loss with exercise alone" and that "an exercise regimen… is unlikely to result in short-term weight loss beyond what is achieved with dietary change."It sounds faintly heretical, if not downright facetious. And it's a scientific discovery that most health professionals are, naturally, keen to downplay. After all, exercise is still good for us. It's just that, in defiance of decades of New Year resolutions, it's unlikely to make us slim.Most of us have a grasp of the rudiments of weight gain and loss: you put energy (calories) into your body through food, you expend them through movement, and any that don't get burned off are stored in your body as fat. Unfortunately, the maths isn't in our favour. "In theory, of course, it's possible that you can burn more calories than you eat," says Dr Susan Jebb, head of nutrition and health research at the Medical Research Council, and one of the government's go-to academics for advice on nutrition. "But you have to do an awful lot more exercise than most people realise. To burn off an extra 500 calories is typically an extra two hours of cycling. And that's about two doughnuts."From a practical perspective, then, exercise is never going to be an effective way of slimming, unless you have the training schedule – and the willpower – of an Olympic athlete. "It's simple maths," says Professor Paul Gately, of the Carnegie Weight Management institution in Leeds. "If you want to lose a pound of body fat, then that requires you to run from Leeds to Nottingham, but if you want to do it through diet, you just have to skip a meal for seven days." Both Jebb and Gately are keen to stress that there is plenty of evidence that exercise can add value to a diet: "It certainly does maximise the amount you lose as fat rather than tissue," Jebb points out. But Gately sums it up: "Most people, offered the choice, are going to go for the diet, because it's easier to achieve."There's another, more insidious, problem with pinning all your hopes for a holiday bod on exercise. In what has become a defining experiment at the University of Louisiana, led by Dr Timothy Church, hundreds of overweight women were put on exercise regimes for a six-month period. Some worked out for 72 minutes each week, some for 136 minutes, and some for 194. A fourth group kept to their normal daily routine with no additional exercise.Against all the laws of natural justice, at the end of the study, there was no significant difference in weight loss between those who had exercised – some of them for several days a week – and those who hadn't. (Church doesn't record whether he told the women who he'd had training for three and half hours a week, or whether he was wearing protective clothing when he did.) Some of the women even gained weight.Church identified the problem and called it "compensation": those who exercised cancelled out the calories they had burned by eating more, generally as a form of self-reward. The post-workout pastry to celebrate a job well done – or even a few pieces of fruit to satisfy their stimulated appetites – undid their good work. In some cases, they were less physically active in their daily life as well.His findings are backed up by a paper on childhood obesity published in 2008 by Boston academics Steven Gortmaker and Kendrin Sonneville. In an 18-month study investigating what they call "the energy gap" – the daily imbalance between energy intake and expenditure — the pair showed that when the children in their experiment exercised, they ended up eating more than the calories they had just burned, sometimes 10 or 20 times as many. "Although physical activity is thought of as an energy-deficit activity," they wrote, "our estimates do not support this hypothesis."In the 1950s, the celebrated French-American nutritionist Jean Mayer was the first to introduce a link between exercise and weight reduction. Until then, the notion that physical activity might help you lose weight was actually rather unfashionable in the scientific community – in the 1930s, a leading specialist had persuasively argued that it was more effective to keep patients on bed rest.Over the course of his career, Mayer's pioneering studies – on rats, babies and schoolgirls – demonstrated that the less active someone was, the more likely they were to be fat. Mayer himself, the son of two eminent physiologists, and a Second World War hero to boot, became one of the world's leading figures in nutrition and most influential voices in the sphere of public health. As an advisor to the White House and to the World Health Organisation, he drew correlations between exercise and fitness that triggered a revolution in thinking on the subject in the 60s and 70s. "Getting fit" became synonymous not just with healthier living, but with a leaner, meaner body, and the ground was laid for a burgeoning gym industry.Each successive postwar generation was enjoying an increasingly sedentary lifestyle, and those lifestyles have been accompanied by an apparently inexorable increase in obesity. Three in five UK adults are now officially overweight. And type II diabetes, which used to be a disease that affected you at the end of your life, is now the fastest-rising chronic disorder in paediatric clinics.But have we confused cause and effect? Terry Wilkin, professor of endocrinology and metabolism at the Peninsula Medical School in Plymouth, argues that we have. The title of his latest research is: "Fatness leads to inactivity, but inactivity does not lead to fatness". Wilkin is nearing the end of an 11-year study on obesity in children, which has been monitoring the health, weight and activity levels of 300 subjects since the age of five. When his team compared the more naturally active children with the less active ones, they were surprised to discover absolutely no difference in their body fat or body mass.That's not to say that exercise is not making the children healthy in other ways, says Wilkin, just that it's having no palpable effect on their overall size and shape. "And that's a fundamental issue," he adds, "because governments, including ours, use body mass as an outcome measure." In other words, obesity figures are not going to improve through government-sponsored programmes that focus primarily on exercise while ignoring the behemoth of a food industry that is free to push high-calorie junk to kids (and, for that matter, adults).For one thing, Wilkin believes he has discovered another form of "compensation", similar to Timothy Church's discovery that we reward ourselves with food when we exercise. Looking at the question of whether it was possible to change a child's physical activity, Wilkin's team put accelerometers on children at schools with very different PE schedules: one which offered 1.7 hours a week, and another that offered nine hours."The children did 64% more PE at the second school. But when they got home they did the reverse. Those who had had the activity during the day flopped and those who hadn't perked up, and if you added the in-school and out-of-school together you got the same. From which we concluded that physical activity is controlled by the brain, not by the environment – if you're given a big opportunity to exercise at one time of day you'll compensate at another."Wilkin argues that the environmental factors we tend to obsess about in the fight against obesity – playing fields, PE time in school, extracurricular activities, parental encouragement – are actually less of a factor in determining what exercise we do than our own bodies. "An evolutionary biologist would say physical activity is the only voluntary means you have of varying or regulating your energy expenditure. In other words, what physical activity you do is not going to be left to the city council to decide. It's going to be controlled, fundamentally, from within."His thesis has caused controversy among his peers – there have been cavils that his study sample is inconclusively small – and not all obesity experts appreciate the message. "We haven't had the sensitivity in the studies to really determine the longitudinal determinants of obesity in children yet," says Dr Ken Fox, professor of exercise and health science at Bristol University and advisor to the government's obesity strategy. "It's far too early to start discounting things as important as physical activity. Those who are saying it has no impact are neglecting a huge amount of the literature. I am suspicious of anyone who polarises obesity as one thing over another when there is strong agreement that it has multiple causes.""Terry's point is right," says Paul Gately, "but it's not right in the context of public health promotion. In people who have lost weight and kept weight off, physical activity is almost always involved. And those people who just do diet are more likely to fail, as are those who just do exercise. You need a combination of the two, because we're talking about human beings, not machines. We know that dietary behaviour is quite a negative behaviour – we're having to deny ourselves something. There aren't any diets out there that people enjoy. But people do enjoy being physically active.""What we want to avoid is people thinking they can control their weight simply by dieting," adds Jebb, who points out that this is the very scenario that encourages anorexia in teenage girls. "Just restricting your diet is not going to be the healthiest way to live." Traditional dieting clubs like Weightwatchers and Slimming World promote exercise as a key part of a weight-loss strategy: scientific studies show that exercise is an important factor in maintaining weight loss and, Jebb adds, some studies suggest it can help in preventing weight gain.But it is still much harder to exercise when you're already overweight, and "high energy density" foods are quick to get us there – overeating by just 100 calories a day can lead to a weight increase of 10lb over a year. "Education must come first," says Wilkin. "Eating habits have to change to a much lower calorie intake, much lower body weight, and we would be fitter as a result because we would be able to do more physical activity." He would like to see higher levels of tax on calorie-dense food, similar to those levied on tobacco, which have proved effective in the campaign against smoking.Does the coalition government – which will launch a White Paper on the subject this autumn – agree? Anne Milton, minister for public health, is not keen to commit to any particular strategy before its publication. "There's not a magic bullet here," she says. "Despite the best efforts of government actually the public's health hasn't improved hugely.Change4Life [the government's current healthy-living initiative] is doing a good job. But we think there's still lots more we can do with it."Any drastic measures to curb the excesses of junk food marketing seem unlikely – both Milton and Secretary of State for Health Andrew Lansley stress the importance of working "with" industry – and much of her language is concerned with "individual choice". When it comes to losing weight, it seems there's only one real choice – stop eating so much food.Running on empty: fat is a feminine issueThe good news The latest scientific findings from the US suggest that an intense workout in the gym is actually less effective than gentle exercise in terms of weight loss. Barry Braun, associate professor of kinesiology at the University of Massachusetts, says that the evidence emerging from his research team shows that moderate exercise such as "low-intensity ambulation" (ie walking) may help to burn calories "without triggering a caloric compensation effect" – ie without making you reach for a snack the moment you're done. In one experiment, Braun showed that simply standing up instead of sitting used up hundreds more calories a day without increasing appetite hormones in your blood.The bad news Perhaps offering one reason for a multi-billion-pound weight-loss industry aimed almost exclusively at women, research has confirmed that it is more difficult for women to shed the pounds than men, because women's bodies are simply more efficient at storing fat. In one of Braun's experiments, in which overweight men and women were monitored while walking on treadmills, the women's blood levels of insulin decreased while appetite hormones increased; the men's, meanwhile, displayed no such change. "Across the evidence base, it seems that it's tougher for women to lose weight than men," affirms Ken Fox, professor of exercise and health sciences at Bristol University.Snack attack: how long it takes to burn off 10 favourite foodsOne portion of Tesco lasagne (560 cal): 45 minutes of spinningOne slice of Domino's pepperoni pizza (198 cal): 45 minutes of swimmingMorrisons' chocolate-chip muffin (476 cal): 58 minutes of climbingPacket of Walkers cheese and onion crisps (184 cal): 35 minutes of frisbeeSubway tuna wrap (310 cal): 1 hour and 10 minutes of body pumpBacon sandwich on white bread (430 cal): 58 minutes of footballCoffee Republic ham and cheese toastie (436 cal): 1 hour and 30 minutes of netballGranny Smith apple (62 cal): 15 minutes of weightliftingM&S hot cross bun (159 cal): 20 minutes of skippingMars bar (280 cal): 50 minutes of aqua aerobicsEmma John is deputy editor of the Observer MagazineHealth & wellbeingHealthFood & drinkFitnessNutritionNutritionEmma Johnguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Condom Use Is Highest for Young, Study Finds A study of Americans’ sexual behavior finds teenagers are more responsible than adults about using condoms. feeds.nytimes.com |
String theory and colour-field splash Using images and art to try and understand science can be helpful, misleading, flaky or fun. But it seems to be inescapable.So on a relaxing Saturday morning, where the fact that my daughter and I are recuperating from colds means I am excused swimming, I finally got around to watching this video I was sent some time ago by Mike Bernstein.I'm sceptical about string theory, and about art appropriating science buzzwords to give itself some intellectual frisson. But I like the imagery here (and the hat) and it set me thinking a bit about how I use pictures to help me understand physics.Various concepts wheeled in to discuss the recent CMS results are known as "colour glass condensate" and "quark-gluon plasma". (Personally it doesn't seem likely to me they have anything to do with it, but we shall see). Even the names "gluon" (the boson which carries the strong force) or "string theory" itself tell you that people are latching on to images from the everyday to help label and understand complex mathematical constructs.Pictures can be helpful, they can also mislead. I guess it is the mathematics and the data which nudge them along the right track, discarding false trails and reinforcing genuine insights. Anyway, thanks Mike for making me think, and I thought I would pass it on. And I do like the pictures too. More of them at the Saatchi online gallery.This isn't a queue to mail me zillions of sciency-arty links, but I would be very happy if you wanted to add some in the comments, as Mike did here.Jon Butterworthguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
The surprising truth about what motivates us Why do people give to charities? Volunteer? Write blogs -- for free? Why do we do the things we do? This interesting video provides a few clues.Why do people give to charities? Volunteer? Write blogs -- for free? Why do we do the things we do? This interesting video provides a few clues. This video, animated by RSA Animate and adapted from Dan Pink's talk at the RSA, illustrates the hidden truths behind what really motivates us at home and in the workplace.Are you on-the-go while (trying to) watch this? Download the RSA Animate iPhone app -- for free.The speaker, Daniel Pink, is an American writer who has published four books that examine the changing world of work. For over 250 years the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) has been a cradle of enlightenment thinking and a force for social progress. Their approach is multi-disciplinary, politically independent and combines cutting edge research and policy development with practical action. GrrlScientistguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |