I study on the plane, I study through the rain
I study in the pool and I study like a fool
I WILL PASS THE CAIA SAM-I-AM
I will pass it on a boat; “I will pass it,” you can quote
I will pass it through a cramp and I will pass it like a CHAMP
I study in the pool and I study like a fool
I WILL PASS THE CAIA SAM-I-AM
I will pass it on a boat; “I will pass it,” you can quote
I will pass it through a cramp and I will pass it like a CHAMP
There are more verses, but I will spare you… hopefully
you’ve forgiven me now?
What’s incredibly interesting to me is the overlap between
financial analysis and nutritional research. For instance, in evaluating an
investment manager there are several behavioral biases that, if present, should
raise red flags to a potential investor. If an investor ignores these biases, it could lead to financial ruin. In nutrition, I believe the stakes
are even higher. Behavioral bias is one of the first key things I think we can learn from my forays into finance.
An example of this is expectation bias, which is the
tendency of an investment manager to overemphasize information that is
consistent with prior beliefs. In nutrition, we see this in calorie counting. We learn the first law of thermodynamics, which states that energy cannot be created or
destroyed, only transferred. Then we see this principal erroneously applied as
“all calories are created equal,” which ignores the way that energy is used and
applied in the body. We are using a principal that is useful in one scenario (and emphasizing its merits) without noticing that it doesn't apply to this particular premise. A health researcher may conduct a study and then using the data, work backwards to show that the person who ate less calories lost more weight, all the while ignoring the very important question of "why?"
Confirmation bias is rampant in nutrition (and one could
argue in many other places in our society). Confirmation bias is when a manager
or investor interprets data in a manner that supports their preexisting
beliefs. An example of this in nutrition is when a major corporation sponsors research
because they are looking for a particular result (e.g., a study on the health
effects of sugar sponsored by Coca-Cola). For more on this topic, read this article on Mother Jones
-- it actually blew my mind. The research by Ancel Keys in my last post is also a textbook example of confirmation bias.
This rather intuitively named bias refers to a tendency to
follow the crowd. An investor may be friends with another investor who did due
diligence on a manager and, instead of conducting their own due diligence
review and conducting proprietary analysis, they invest in the manager’s
investment product based on their friend's advice. So your friend is
following a gluten-free diet and is seeing some great results, and, therefore,
you decide to also become gluten-free. That’s not doing your due diligence,
that’s following the herd. Don’t be a sheep!
Last, but not at all least, is the bias blind spot. I’m not
gonna lie, this one can be painful and rather difficult to avoid (and admit). The bias
blind spot is underestimating the influence of behavioral biases on one’s own behavior.
It is much easier to spot in others than in oneself. To emphasize this point,
I’ll use myself as an example. For a long time, I depended on authority figures
to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy foods. To this day, I still have a
tendency to believe someone with a bunch of fancy letters next to their name
and a big diploma on their wall. I see this again and again in the nutritional
debate, where attempts are made to prove an argument based on the reputation of
the person stating their opinion. Instead of looking at the merits of the data
and the logic of the opinion, we rely on ad hominem arguments.
I think I have somehow managed to integrate my studies into
getting the blog back on track. I hope to post again soon, but until then… I
will study in a tree, I will study by the sea, I will study like a dog and I
will study on a log…
