Waffling on what health studies mean

"Dads to blame for fat kids," shouts a headline from this week's news. "Hmmm, there might be something to that," I think, remembering the waffles-and-sausage breakfast my dad made for me last weekend. Still, I'm suspicious of anything that sounds that easy. And why blame dads?

Turned out the story could have just as easily been headlined "Thin and healthy? Thank Dad." The study found that dads who were engaged with their kids, setting boundaries and acting as role models, were more likely to have children with a healthy Body Mass Index (BMI) than dads who were disengaged or permissive. The parenting style of mothers -- who often get blamed when a child is heavier than normal -- didn't show any correlation to kids' BMI.

Setting aside legitimate questions about the use of BMI to measure obesity, does this prove dads are to blame when their kids are overweight? Of course not. Heredity, culture, available food and exercise options, and the influence of friends, care providers and other relatives all play a role in a child's weight.

News stories and headlines often oversimplify or magnify the results of research. The Effect Measure public-health blog last week gathered up a range of headlines that appeared in response to a release from the Centers for Disease Control on the use of masks to prevent the spread of avian flu -- a Rorschach test for headline writers, as they put it.

As an old newspaper headline-writer myself, I can sympathize with the journalist struggling to sum up complicated information in six words or less while keeping it engaging and fun. Yet the results leave many people struggling to make sense of conflicting information while making good decisions for themselves and their families. OrganizedWisdom continues to look for more and better ways to make sense of health information in a way that ordinary people can understand, trust and share.

Still, ladies, if your kids are chubby, it may not be all your fault. Just to be sure, though, you probably ought to save that Mother's Day chocolate for yourself...