Researchers were awarded more than $4 million by the Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency to study whether exposure to air pollution led children to eat more fast food.
The $4,146,875 grant was awarded in 2013 to fund a five-year study at the University of Southern California into whether proximity to “near-roadway air pollution” was a contributing factor in childhood obesity.
In their published study, released this year in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the researchers say they were unable to prove any association between pollutant exposure and obesity in children but were able to find a correlation between pollutant exposure and changes in fast-food consumption patterns.
The study was based on interviews conducted with school-age children in twelve southern California communities in the 1990s.
Diet information was based on self-reported information from the students, who were given a “food frequency questionnaire” annually until they graduated high school. Pollution levels were estimated for each student’s residential address.
The recorded information was inadequate for answering the question it was paid to answer on childhood obesity, the study explains.
“However, because there was no significant association between childhood air pollutant exposure and obesity or overweight in this study sample,” the study explains, “the mediation effect of food pattern factor scores in the association between air pollutant exposure and obesity could not be examined under a consistent mediation model.”
The study did say a correlation between pollution exposure and fast-food consumption was found, but it failed to prove any causal relationship between the two.
“Future studies are warranted to identify specific air pollutant chemicals that could have a causal effect on altering children’s dietary behavior,” the study said.
The study says the correlation between pollution and fast-food consumption remained after adjusting for factors such as socioeconomic status and proximity to fast-food restaurants but makes no claim that these factors were less at play than exposure to pollutants.
In addition to obesity, it was unable to associate high-calorie intake or a high “sweet food” diet with exposure to air pollutants.
The study was able to identify a correlation between pollutant exposure and trans fat intake, but as it acknowledges, the finding will have no policy implications due to the Trump administration’s decision to ban trans fats last summer.
Read more at Free Beacon
So Obama chose to squander 4.i Million Dollars to try and blame McDonald’s for Air Pollution just in the hope that someone would Sue the Fast Food Places over all this the same way their suing the Fossil Fuels Companies since the Democrats are one of the biggist supporters to the trial lawyers The Vulture the Shark and the Donkey are Partners in Crime
Annually a food questionnaire?
Geez, I hardly remember what I ate last week.
Goes to show that these ‘studies’ are absolutely worthless.
Gee I hate these stories as they are a reminder of how corrupt and in the tank to green lobbyists the Obama administration was . $4 million is a rounding error on $billions the Obama era EPA gave out to green lobbiests and grant seekers .
Lets not forget the $500 million the Obama administration slipped out the door to the UN as they headed to the exits . That’s $500 million unauthorized to fund globalist ambitions of commie supporters .
I was amused that one of the conclusions was that more money for studies was needed. My professors said this was very common among grant funded activities.
I noticed that there was no distinction between real pollution and carbon dioxide. We don’t know if they consider both to be pollution or only estimated the real pollution.
Having people remember what they ate is one of the most inaccurate methods of gathering data. One study asked obese people who were hospitalized what they ate. These people were then given exactly what they said that they had been eating. All of them started to lose weight. It is typical for people to not remember what they are very accurately and this case they remembered eating less than they actually were.
Forced Veagism which PETA wants just imagine them banning Livestock Farming and Ranching based upon Junk Science like they did with DDT some people are stupid enough to think Animal Agriculture is harmful to the Enviroment never mind the facts that Livestock have been on earth for Eons long before any of these Eco-Freaks were ever born