Obese politicians signal corruption, study finds | Hacker News Reader

Obese politicians signal corruption, study finds

eurasianet.org

65 pointsktln224 comments

In Lithuania we often call them 'beavers'- a standard picture of a man in his mid 50s, fat as hell and equally corrupt. At least we are having fewer and fewer of these. However,these occasionally get replaced by the other type- the 'slick ones'. Men in their mid 30s early 40s, outspoken, well looking and equally full of shit.

In other words, body weight is irrelevant:)

Let me have men about me that are fat, Sleek-headed men and such as sleep a-nights. Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous.

I’m calling bullshit on this one. Is this not just basically profiling?

Some of the methods here sound especially troubling and while we all can enjoy a laugh at the expense of Soviet-wannabe dictators, how is this any different than saying some blanket physical attribute is correlated to some negative behavior or crime, etc?

I’m sure there are skinny leaders who are equally as corrupt. Maybe the skinny ones are even more corrupt and are just more able to afford personal trainers?

More accurate title: Obese post-Soviet politicians correlate with corruption.

have you seen Jerold Nadler?

N = 299. Not sure how meaningful those results are.

I'm no statistician, but since the underlying population in this case (the set of all politicians) is much smaller than the general population, shouldn't that mean that a smaller sample size is more representative?

More representative, but difficult to draw any "real" predictive power

N is 15, not 299.

This is comparing one measure for each of the 15 countries against three other measures (cabinet minister's average obesity Vs. Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, World Bank worldwide governance indicator Control of Corruption, and Index of Public Integrity).

The 299 is the combined number of cabinet ministers whose weight were averaged, which is a single measure per location, not the actual subject of the statistical question (which is a country, not an individual cabinet minister).

It also isn't in a peer reviewed journal at all.

N = 15 is a lot larger than you think when the highest possible N is ~200.

If the available sample is too small, some questions may not be answerable via statistical means, at least with any high degree of confidence.

This one may not be answerable via this methodology. Even if you did all 200 countries, there just may not be enough high quality data to reach a satisfactory conclusion.

I'm not even saying the conclusion is wrong, I am saying the data doesn't exist to determine if it is right OR wrong.

The question is how many variables have they tested before settling on obesity.

Every single signal points for non-significance of this article. What, of course, is just reason to test it in another population. But instead people will just keep repeating it as if the findings were true.

I think the limit is closer to 400 since some federal states have states as big as many countries, but very good point.

I think it may not be entirely serious (or at least the news article's coverage of it isn't).

Such an interesting header and such a disappointing content! I grew up in Latvia and, trust me, the levels of corruption in Latvia are astonishing and are only limited by a relatively small budget. Yet, people are generally quite slim, and the biggest politicians are mostly sleek, tall and quite good looking.

This study needs a LOT more insight. It basically says that there is correlation with the exception of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and sometimes Ukraine. Well, that's basically all the Western/European post-USSR space, which is a lot, so it diminishes the entire thesis.

Also, countries like Tajikistan were affected by starvation after the WW2 a lot more than the Baltic States, which this study doesn't mention. Several years ago Ukraine were commemorating people who have been through Holodomor, which was also a period of severe starvation in Ukrainian SSR imposed by the collectivism after the WW2, and I remember seeing this guy receiving a medal for it... The guy was morbidly obese. So, in my opinion, it would be useful to look into the correlation of financial struggle in the USSR era and the modern attitude towards food and things that were not easily obtainable back in the USSR.

Hmmm. Wonder what's up with Pompeo??

If all politicians are corrupt this would also be true.

Fat shaming?

Science is not interested in political correctness.

Body keeps score...

In other news:

> "'I was too fat' Boris Johnson says we must lose weight to fight Coronavirus"

Perhaps the new svelter Boris will have the side benefit of reducing Tory expenses scandals.

Expenses scandals are a pointless distraction. The lowest hanging fruit of corruption in the UK is the stuffing of the House of Lords.

But expenses scandals result in public perception of corruption (which is what the study's about), so logically, based on this definitely real and very sensible study, thinner PMs should lead to fewer of them!

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