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Several cities, including Austin, Texas, and New York, have considered banning fast food restaurants near schools, but Can we know if this strategy would be effective?

This studio investigates the effect of fast food availability on childhood weight outcomes by gender, race, and location.

No observable effects

The researchers used the body mass index of the Arkansas students, collected from 2004 to 2010, and compared it to home and school addresses through annual school records. The home address was used to geocode the location of the student residences.

Fast food restaurants were identified in the route between the children's homes and their schools. Fast food restaurants included major hamburger chains and drive-through restaurants (e.g. McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy's), dairy stores with large fast food menus (e.g. Dairy Queen), take-out pizza establishments , taco places (e.g. Taco Bell), sandwich places (e.g. Subway, Quiznos), and fried chicken restaurants (e.g. KFC, Chick-Fil-A). The researchers excluded specialty stores such as ice cream shops that do not sell other fast foods (e.g., Baskin-Robbins), coffee shops (e.g., Starbucks), and donut shops (e.g., Krispy Kream).

In Xataka Science

Fast food has another negative thing: the PFAS in its packaging

Using a mean radius of 1.6 km to define exposure near home and school, the mean total exposure level was 3.34 restaurants. He 45.2% of children have at least one fast food restaurant located 800 meters from their school.

But the researchers concluded that changes in exposure had no effect on BMI score.

In Xataka Science

This is the image of the recommended calories that you should consume in a fast food

For example, increasing exposure to fast food at three restaurants moving from fourth to tenth grade increased the mean change in BMI by 0.003, less than one percent (0.7%) of the standard deviation.

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The news

The availability of fast food restaurants between children's homes and their schools does not affect children's weight

was originally published in

Xataka Science

by
Sergio Parra

.

Procrastination, the tendency to postpone our duties, is a widespread evil, especially at a time when there are so many distractions and temptations in the form of leisure.

But among students it is something almost inherent, even among those who study a doctorate: all students They spend about a third of their waking hours in amusements that they themselves describe as a form of procrastination.

Leisure before exams

On average, Students dedicate more than eight hours to leisure activities during the two days before the exams, and their inability to properly manage time is one of their main concerns, as they themselves confess, and one of the reasons for abandoning their studies.

In Xataka Science

What is procrastination and why do we tend to it?

This trend exists regardless of the level of education being taken, as explained Piers Steel in his book Procrastination: Why we put off until tomorrow what we can do today:

It is one of the main reasons why most candidates for a doctorate degree leave the corresponding studies before having obtained it. After your name will appear the letters ABD (acronym in English for "everything but the thesis").

In Xataka Science

Animals can also procrastinate just like humans do.

This tendency to postpone homework because we don't feel like it, because there are more interesting things to do or because we simply feel immense laziness is so powerful that it boycotts even the most carefully established plans and throws away the effort accumulated over years. even though it doesn't make any sense:

Incredible as it may seem, after having achieved admission to very competitive academic programs, after having taken all the doctoral courses, after having perhaps compiled the data for the thesis, when they only need to write and defend it, at least half , never completes the process despite the immense investment of time and the considerable reward it would bring them (on average, 30 percent more salary).

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The news

Procrastination among students: 33 % of all their time is dedicated to procrastinating

was originally published in

Xataka Science

by
Sergio Parra

.