IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0087756.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Crowdsourcing Novel Childhood Predictors of Adult Obesity

Author

Listed:
  • Kirsten E Bevelander
  • Kirsikka Kaipainen
  • Robert Swain
  • Simone Dohle
  • Josh C Bongard
  • Paul D H Hines
  • Brian Wansink

Abstract

Effective and simple screening tools are needed to detect behaviors that are established early in life and have a significant influence on weight gain later in life. Crowdsourcing could be a novel and potentially useful tool to assess childhood predictors of adult obesity. This exploratory study examined whether crowdsourcing could generate well-documented predictors in obesity research and, moreover, whether new directions for future research could be uncovered. Participants were recruited through social media to a question-generation website, on which they answered questions and were able to pose new questions that they thought could predict obesity. During the two weeks of data collection, 532 participants (62% female; age = 26.5±6.7; BMI = 29.0±7.0) registered on the website and suggested a total of 56 unique questions. Nineteen of these questions correlated with body mass index (BMI) and covered several themes identified by prior research, such as parenting styles and healthy lifestyle. More importantly, participants were able to identify potential determinants that were related to a lower BMI, but have not been the subject of extensive research, such as parents packing their children’s lunch to school or talking to them about nutrition. The findings indicate that crowdsourcing can reproduce already existing hypotheses and also generate ideas that are less well documented. The crowdsourced predictors discovered in this study emphasize the importance of family interventions to fight obesity. The questions generated by participants also suggest new ways to express known predictors.

Suggested Citation

  • Kirsten E Bevelander & Kirsikka Kaipainen & Robert Swain & Simone Dohle & Josh C Bongard & Paul D H Hines & Brian Wansink, 2014. "Crowdsourcing Novel Childhood Predictors of Adult Obesity," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(2), pages 1-14, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0087756
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0087756
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0087756
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0087756&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0087756?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:mpr:mprres:6165 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Vartanian, L.R. & Schwartz, M.B. & Brownell, K.D., 2007. "Effects of soft drink consumption on nutrition and health: A systematic review and meta-analysis," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 97(4), pages 667-675.
    3. Honaker, James & King, Gary & Blackwell, Matthew, 2011. "Amelia II: A Program for Missing Data," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 45(i07).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Colantuoni, Francesca & Rojas, Christian, 2013. "Heterogeneous behavior, obesity and storability in soft drink consumption: A dynamic demand model," 2013 Annual Meeting, August 4-6, 2013, Washington, D.C. 257244, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    2. Bo Yang & Xin Huang & Qin Liu & Shenglan Tang & Mary Story & Yiwen Chen & Maigeng Zhou, 2020. "Child Nutrition Trends Over the Past Two Decades and Challenges for Achieving Nutrition SDGs and National Targets in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(4), pages 1-12, February.
    3. Robert A. Jackson & Matthew Pietryka, 2022. "The influence of becoming a parent on political participation in the United States," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 103(3), pages 565-580, May.
    4. Kruyt, Bert & Lehning, Michael & Kahl, Annelen, 2017. "Potential contributions of wind power to a stable and highly renewable Swiss power supply," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 1-11.
    5. Cohen, Joseph N, 2010. "Neoliberalism’s relationship with economic growth in the developing world: Was it the power of the market or the resolution of financial crisis?," MPRA Paper 24527, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Laura C. Leviton, 2008. "Children's Healthy Weight and the School Environment," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 615(1), pages 38-55, January.
    7. Vivek Pandey & Natalia Vidal & Rajat Panwar & Lubna Nafees, 2019. "Characterization of Sustainability Leaders and Laggards in the Global Food Industry," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(18), pages 1-14, September.
    8. Matei Demetrescu & Christoph Hanck & Robinson Kruse‐Becher, 2022. "Robust inference under time‐varying volatility: A real‐time evaluation of professional forecasters," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(5), pages 1010-1030, August.
    9. Valente, Thomas W. & Pitts, Stephanie & Wipfli, Heather & Vega Yon, George G., 2019. "Network influences on policy implementation: Evidence from a global health treaty," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 222(C), pages 188-197.
    10. Daisuke Kato & Ichiro Kawachi & Junko Saito & Naoki Kondo, 2021. "Complex Multimorbidity and Incidence of Long-Term Care Needs in Japan: A Prospective Cohort Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(19), pages 1-11, October.
    11. Hassan, Mahmoud & Oueslati, Walid & Rousselière, Damien, 2020. "Environmental taxes, reforms and economic growth: an empirical analysis of panel data," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 44(3).
    12. Segaro, Ethiopia L. & Larimo, Jorma & Jones, Marian V., 2014. "Internationalisation of family small and medium sized enterprises: The role of stewardship orientation, family commitment culture and top management team," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 381-395.
    13. Wurriehausen, Nadine & Ihle, Rico & Lakner, Sebastian, 2011. "The Integration of the Conventional and Organic Wheat Market," 2011 International Congress, August 30-September 2, 2011, Zurich, Switzerland 115784, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    14. Joseph A. Lewnard & Parag Mahale & Debbie Malden & Vennis Hong & Bradley K. Ackerson & Bruno J. Lewin & Ruth Link-Gelles & Leora R. Feldstein & Marc Lipsitch & Sara Y. Tartof, 2024. "Immune escape and attenuated severity associated with the SARS-CoV-2 BA.2.86/JN.1 lineage," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-12, December.
    15. Shige Song, 2013. "Prenatal malnutrition and subsequent foetal loss risk: Evidence from the 1959-1961 Chinese famine," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 29(26), pages 707-728.
    16. Dahlum, Sirianne & Knutsen, Carl Henrik, 2017. "Do Democracies Provide Better Education? Revisiting the Democracy–Human Capital Link," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 186-199.
    17. Badi H. Baltagi & Georges Bresson & Anoop Chaturvedi & Guy Lacroix, 2022. "Robust Dynamic Space-Time Panel Data Models Using ε-contamination: An Application to Crop Yields and Climate Change," Center for Policy Research Working Papers 254, Center for Policy Research, Maxwell School, Syracuse University.
    18. Hannes Weber, 2018. "Higher acceptance rates of asylum seekers lead to slightly more asylum applications in the future," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 39(47), pages 1291-1304.
    19. Phillipp Schwarzfischer & Dariusz Gruszfeld & Piotr Socha & Veronica Luque & Ricardo Closa-Monasterolo & Déborah Rousseaux & Melissa Moretti & Alice ReDionigi & Elvira Verduci & Berthold Koletzko & Ve, 2020. "Effects of screen time and playing outside on anthropometric measures in preschool aged children," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(3), pages 1-15, March.
    20. Joseph A. Lewnard & Vennis Hong & Jeniffer S. Kim & Sally F. Shaw & Bruno Lewin & Harpreet Takhar & Sara Y. Tartof, 2023. "Association of SARS-CoV-2 BA.4/BA.5 Omicron lineages with immune escape and clinical outcome," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-11, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0087756. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.