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Joined:
Mar 05
Posts: 1394
Julie&Adam says:
It seems that whenever a study into infant feeding shows bf babies have an advantage the results are adapted to allow for social and economic factors. As the majority of bf babies in our culture seem to come from more affluent and better educated families that often means the results can end up showing little or no difference between the 2 (for example the study into IQ).
What I'm wanting to know is should it be this way? Is it fair to assume that because you are poor and uneducated you are less healthy and less intelligent and your children will be too? It seems the assumption is the bf child of a window cleaner will be less healthy than the ff child of a proffessor. Has this ever been proven and if not how can they alter the results of studies because of an assumption? Surely thats an unscientific way of conducting a scientific study? Why if they feel social economic factors are so important do they not compare like with like. So compare bf poor babies to ff poor babies and bf rich babies to ff rich babies instead of putting them all in the same category and nit picking at the evidence.
Thoughts please? (On how the studies are conducted not on bf versus ff please). Also I'm just about finished reading bf matters which is what prompted this debate so if anyone else has read it I'd be interested in your thoughts on that too.
Mar 06
Posts: 3325
Arwen1984 says:
hi julie hope youre ok :)
Aw Petra when I saw you'd replied I was expecting a really long insightful post lol. Not too bad but getting better lol- need to send you your nappies back for your new bubba.
Posts: 6352
Big Bunny says:
Hi Julie I would be interested in reading the details of the studies- if you can send me a link or cite the publication(s), I'll have a read. My job is in clincal research so I'm involved in interpretation of data from studies. Here are my thoughts, but without knowing the details of the studies themselves, yet: 'Allowing for socio-economic factors' means that in the statistical analysis, they have adusted for those things- this is a mathematical method of reducing bias in the results by making assumptions based on evidence, and is actually the most scientific way of doing it. You are right, there is an assumption that the child of a 'window cleaner' is likely to be less healthy than that of a 'professor', but that assumption is a fair one as it is based on existing evidence that people living in poverty are more likely to be less healthy and end up with poorer qualifications. If you just conducted a simplistic comparison of bf children vs non-bf children you would almost certainly see a very large advantage of bf children, but the size of that advantage would be 'confounded' by socio-economic factors. That is to say, living in a wealthier background already gives a health and educational advantage and therefore the results would be biased towards bf children.
As regards the IQ test, I think that's of very limited value in measuring intelligence, because you can practice IQ tests and get better at scoring higher, which obviously does not mean your intelligence has improved! Interestingly, some school children are receiving coaching in IQ tests, and you can bet your boots that those children will be ones from wealthier families who can afford to spend their money on such things.
Julie&Adam said: Aw Petra when I saw you'd replied I was expecting a really long insightful post lol. Not too bad but getting better lol- need to send you your nappies back for your new bubba.
lol i couldnt reply more at the time cos of william :)
are you ever on msn anymore?
i will think up a long reply dont worry, just need to sort my ideas hehe
Big Bunny said: Hi Julie I would be interested in reading the details of the studies- if you can send me a link or cite the publication(s), I'll have a read. My job is in clincal research so I'm involved in interpretation of data from studies. Here are my thoughts, but without knowing the details of the studies themselves, yet: 'Allowing for socio-economic factors' means that in the statistical analysis, they have adusted for those things- this is a mathematical method of reducing bias in the results by making assumptions based on evidence, and is actually the most scientific way of doing it. You are right, there is an assumption that the child of a 'window cleaner' is likely to be less healthy than that of a 'professor', but that assumption is a fair one as it is based on existing evidence that people living in poverty are more likely to be less healthy and end up with poorer qualifications. If you just conducted a simplistic comparison of bf children vs non-bf children you would almost certainly see a very large advantage of bf children, but the size of that advantage would be 'confounded' by socio-economic factors. That is to say, living in a wealthier background already gives a health and educational advantage and therefore the results would be biased towards bf children. As regards the IQ test, I think that's of very limited value in measuring intelligence, because you can practice IQ tests and get better at scoring higher, which obviously does not mean your intelligence has improved! Interestingly, some school children are receiving coaching in IQ tests, and you can bet your boots that those children will be ones from wealthier families who can afford to spend their money on such things.
i suppose you could say that for every person living in a council house with limited means but STILL eating healthily, bf, exercising etc there is a person living in a mansion eating takeaways every night of the week and sitting on his backside playing computer games.
BUT you've got to take these things into account somewhow. low income families are more likely to be unhealthy for various reasons and studies that have been done, not only on bf have to take that into account. the way they do that in studies is the most accurate way possible. NO study can say for certain whether something is 45% better or 47% better but the fact remains that, especially with bf there hasnt been a single study conducted that had the outcome of formula feeding being better. its always the same outcome, that bf is better. to me having 100 studies saying the same thing says more than having one study saying something and another saying somethng else. even if those 100 studies cant be entirely sure of the accuracy of their percentages they still all point to the undeniable fact that breastfeeding is better.
I agree it is undeniable that bf is better, and studies have to be as free from bias (and therefore criticism) as possible. Of course, the assumptions based on socio-economic factors don't hold for every individual, they describe patterns in the population. My husband was bottle fed and grew up in a tiny council house but has achieved a good level of education and is pretty healthy (though he could benefit from a bit more exercise, lol!)
Jun 06
Posts: 12329
beaujolais says:
Arwen1984 said: Big Bunny said: Hi Julie I would be interested in reading the details of the studies- if you can send me a link or cite the publication(s), I'll have a read. My job is in clincal research so I'm involved in interpretation of data from studies. Here are my thoughts, but without knowing the details of the studies themselves, yet: 'Allowing for socio-economic factors' means that in the statistical analysis, they have adusted for those things- this is a mathematical method of reducing bias in the results by making assumptions based on evidence, and is actually the most scientific way of doing it. You are right, there is an assumption that the child of a 'window cleaner' is likely to be less healthy than that of a 'professor', but that assumption is a fair one as it is based on existing evidence that people living in poverty are more likely to be less healthy and end up with poorer qualifications. If you just conducted a simplistic comparison of bf children vs non-bf children you would almost certainly see a very large advantage of bf children, but the size of that advantage would be 'confounded' by socio-economic factors. That is to say, living in a wealthier background already gives a health and educational advantage and therefore the results would be biased towards bf children. i suppose you could say that for every person living in a council house with limited means but STILL eating healthily, bf, exercising is a person living in a mansion eating takeaways every night of the week and sitting on his backside playing computer games.etc there BUT you've got to take these things into account somewhow. low income families are more likely to be unhealthy for various reasons and studies that have been done, not only on bf have to take that into account. the way they do that in studies is the most accurate way possible. NO study can say for certain whether something is 45% better or 47% better but the fact remains that, especially with bf there hasnt been a single study conducted that had the outcome of formula feeding being better. its always the same outcome, that bf is better. to me having 100 studies saying the same thing says more than having one study saying something and another saying somethng else. even if those 100 studies cant be entirely sure of the accuracy of their percentages they still all point to the undeniable fact that breastfeeding is better.
Big Bunny said: Hi Julie I would be interested in reading the details of the studies- if you can send me a link or cite the publication(s), I'll have a read. My job is in clincal research so I'm involved in interpretation of data from studies. Here are my thoughts, but without knowing the details of the studies themselves, yet: 'Allowing for socio-economic factors' means that in the statistical analysis, they have adusted for those things- this is a mathematical method of reducing bias in the results by making assumptions based on evidence, and is actually the most scientific way of doing it. You are right, there is an assumption that the child of a 'window cleaner' is likely to be less healthy than that of a 'professor', but that assumption is a fair one as it is based on existing evidence that people living in poverty are more likely to be less healthy and end up with poorer qualifications. If you just conducted a simplistic comparison of bf children vs non-bf children you would almost certainly see a very large advantage of bf children, but the size of that advantage would be 'confounded' by socio-economic factors. That is to say, living in a wealthier background already gives a health and educational advantage and therefore the results would be biased towards bf children.
i suppose you could say that for every person living in a council house with limited means but STILL eating healthily, bf, exercising is a person living in a mansion eating takeaways every night of the week and sitting on his backside playing computer games.etc there
Exactly.. have you seen Kerry Katona? lol!
Also when things like the recession have such a huge effect on the economics of the country, it makes the data even harder to interpret.
Council housed ppl on benefits are assumed to be in the lower echelons of society but nowadays how many educated professionals are awaiting social housing and in receipt of JSA after facing bankrupcy and redundancy? Will we see a surge in children from poorer families now living with better health due to this shift?
I think without all the stiudies in the world that its plain to see bf children will be healthier....irrespective of education or social advantage etc or little johnny who was formula fed and the picture of health yadda yadda. There are so many factors and variables that no matter how many studies show bf babies are healthier, ppl can argue its down to other lifestyle factors or collection and analysis of data.
You only have to consider the composition of bm compared to formula to agree that it gives bf babies huge health advantages.
***Mammy to Hope, Tru and little Delilah***
Sep 06
Posts: 2507
Laury-elle says:
beaujolais said: Exactly.. have you seen Kerry Katona? lol! Also when things like the recession have such a huge effect on the economics of the country, it makes the data even harder to interpret. Council housed ppl on benefits are assumed to be in the lower echelons of society but nowadays how many educated professionals are awaiting social housing and in receipt of JSA after facing bankrupcy and redundancy? Will we see a surge in children from poorer families now living with better health due to this shift? I think without all the stiudies in the world that its plain to see bf children will be healthier....irrespective of education or social advantage etc or little johnny who was formula fed and the picture of health yadda yadda. There are so many factors and variables that no matter how many studies show bf babies are healthier, ppl can argue its down to other lifestyle factors or collection and analysis of data. You only have to consider the composition of bm compared to formula to agree that it gives bf babies huge health advantages.
How? Knowing the composition of bf has shown us the ingredients and the studies are trying to quantified just how beneficial these factors are regarding the health of our children. Those many factors and variables that are taken into account are all part of good scientific practice so that we don't get personal bias such as 'it's plain to see'' when really all that is plain to see is that there maybe a casual link between something rather then a causative one.
I personally think the socio-economic factor makes a huge difference to a lot of social studies. Just based on my personal experience over the last 6 weeks going through all this 11+ malarky with Lauren, I can really see how a bias towards social background can affect how your intelligence can be measured.
It's well known that there has been a social divide in bf rates for the last few decades in the UK. To my mind that warrants a full understanding, including an understanding of the size of the difference between ff and bf and any impact of not ff. Obviously, bf is better, but because ff is so prevalent it's important to know whether bf is just slightly better, or so much better that ff should be made illegal. To understand the magnitude of the difference between bf and ff you have to do scientifically sound studies. If you want to encourage more people to bf, you have to have accurate data to convince them. People can argue all they like, but the sounder the studies, the sounder the argument.
Don't forget that it's adjustment for socio-economic factors, so it's not simply your income, it's things like cultural factors and education.
Another reason i can see for the importance of having reliable studies, is that it's a fact that some women are unable to bf, so it is reassuring for them to know that ff is not putting their children at a serious disadvantage (which is what some people would have them believe).
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