Question

The "Journal of American pediatrics" reports a correlational link between watching TV watching and obesity. Does this link mean there is a casual relation between TV watching and obesity? What alternative explanations can you think of?

Answer 1

A correlation between two variable suggests the manner in which the dependent variable is affected with a change in the independent variable. There is said to be a positive correlation between the two variables is increase in one variable also leads to the increase in the other variable. Also, there is said to be a negative correlation when increase in one variable leads to the decrease of another variable.

Now one of the disadvantages or consequences of using a correlational study is that correlation does not imply causation and sometimes you may find significant correlation between things that are not related at all. For example, the correlation between the age of Miss America and the number of films Nicholas Cage appeared in that year is 87%. This is a text-book example of spurious correlation.

Therefore, just because the study suggests a correlation between watching TV and obesity does not mean that one is causing the other. It is also possible that a third variable like the amount of exercise that a person does is more related to the variables that are concerned.

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