Hi there! We are a group of Year 2 Physiotherapy students and we are conducting a study on neck and waist ratios. Having heard the myth that the circumference of your neck is the same as your pants width, we decided to see if this could be scientifically proven true!
Our variables in this study is neck and waist circumference (both in inches). We then half the waist circumference to get the pants width.
The reason why we keep to these 2 variables is to keep as closely linked to the myth as possible.
Albeit not having a clinical reasoning for our choice of study, it is an interesting off the streets myth that could be implemented in the clinical setting if proven theoretically related. In circumstances where taking measurements of patients prove physically difficult (eg. bed bound/ coma patients), this neck-waist ratio could be used for an alternative measurement method for clothing, body brace, bandages etc.
• What is the hypothesis?
H1: There is a relationship between neck and waist measurement.
H0: There is no relationship between neck and waist measurement.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Methodology
• How was the data collection done?
Each member had to gather measurements of 5 girls and 5 boys, aged between 18-25 years old. Subjects were gathered randomly from each individual’s pool of friends.
• How did you gather the samples? (Eg measure from where to where?)
For a Male's neck: Find Adam’s apple and measure the circumference below it.
For a Female's neck: Find Hyoid bone and measure the circumference below it.
For a Male's waist: Standing upright, find the belly button and measure the circumference of the waist.
For a Female's waist: Standing upright, find the elbow crease and measure the circumference of the waist (girls).
• What did you use to measure?
Measuring tape (sewing kit)
• How often – once or average of three?
Once.
• Any rejection? etc
None.
Each member had to gather measurements of 5 girls and 5 boys, aged between 18-25 years old. Subjects were gathered randomly from each individual’s pool of friends.
• How did you gather the samples? (Eg measure from where to where?)
For a Male's neck: Find Adam’s apple and measure the circumference below it.
For a Female's neck: Find Hyoid bone and measure the circumference below it.
For a Male's waist: Standing upright, find the belly button and measure the circumference of the waist.
For a Female's waist: Standing upright, find the elbow crease and measure the circumference of the waist (girls).
• What did you use to measure?
Measuring tape (sewing kit)
• How often – once or average of three?
Once.
• Any rejection? etc
None.
Statistical Analysis and Results
Scatter plot digram of Males & Female respondents
NOTE: Waist circumference is HALVED.Correlation for ALL respondents
Symmetric measure for ALL respondents
With reference to Correlation Coefficient table found: HERE.
Also, since our p-value is lesser than 0.005, we can reject our null hypothesis and accept the alternate hypothesis.
Result: There is a weak positive significant association between neck and half-waist (r=0.528, p< 0.005, n=50).
Conclusion
As you can see, from the results, albeit very slight, we have gotten a
positive relationship between the circumference of neck and waist.
Extraneous variables:
1) measurements taken at different times of the day(are you really
slimme in the morning??)
2) Different weight groups (does this theory apply to the obese and
the underweight?)
3) did the test subjects cheat by sucking their stomach in? (we know
how waist circumference is a sensitive topic!)
We limited this study to a certain age group, hoping to add to the
reliability of the study as we do not have middleage men paunches nor
the potential bulge that pregnant women have after giving birth, to
worry about.
We too, standardized the areas as which to measure. Who knew that the
definition of waists would differ from men and women?
Height and weight should not matter. An interesting study taken up
indeed, that the findings of this study would be positive. Who knew?
So next time, when you are out shopping with your mother, you know
she's making sense when she walks up to you and "forcefully" wrap some
sort of skirt/pants around your neck, to see if you can fit. Don't
struggle with her this time round, you know it's reliable!
positive relationship between the circumference of neck and waist.
Extraneous variables:
1) measurements taken at different times of the day(are you really
slimme in the morning??)
2) Different weight groups (does this theory apply to the obese and
the underweight?)
3) did the test subjects cheat by sucking their stomach in? (we know
how waist circumference is a sensitive topic!)
We limited this study to a certain age group, hoping to add to the
reliability of the study as we do not have middleage men paunches nor
the potential bulge that pregnant women have after giving birth, to
worry about.
We too, standardized the areas as which to measure. Who knew that the
definition of waists would differ from men and women?
Height and weight should not matter. An interesting study taken up
indeed, that the findings of this study would be positive. Who knew?
So next time, when you are out shopping with your mother, you know
she's making sense when she walks up to you and "forcefully" wrap some
sort of skirt/pants around your neck, to see if you can fit. Don't
struggle with her this time round, you know it's reliable!
Reflections
Claire: We have debunked the myth! Despite the poor correlation, it is interesting to study and prove this topic. It goes to show that we can't use everyday myths and tricks to our fancy as they might not be right all the time. Also, SPSS (though it was a challenge to use initially, I must admit!) is an insightful and quick way to collate and interpret data. Definitely useful for FYP!
Huimin: Statistics has never been my strongest subject, nor my area of interest. However, I have come to witness for myself how statistics is important in everyday life, and certainly, would have a big part to play in my very important final year project next year. This project has been fun in it's own way. We dread projects and presentations, but we know that at the day, we will learn something out from it. Using a blog as a form of presentation is a first, and is very interesting. Kudos to that.
No longer dread stats that much now. At least I know a little about how to go about using it effectively, and I'm sure I'll learn more as I go along.
Hui Wen: SPSS has made compilation and analysis of statistics much easier, with few clicks away to find out results like the correlation, how strong the relationship of our proposed idea and etc. Incorporating with the idea of waist and neck ratio, which is highly relevant to the shopping crowd(that's us!), has made the project more enjoyable. While it is not easy to navigate around with SPSS, I have learnt much and it will definitely be useful for our FYP as well as in the future.
Marilyn: I've always wondered whether this myth was true as everytime when there is a sale and long queues aat the changing rooms, I will see women putting the wasitband of the pants around their neck. So when this idea was proposed, I was quite interested in it as it will prove whether it has some truth in it. Though our results may not have proven the myth true, it was a good experience in all as we get to put what we had learnt in statistics to a real-life scenario and not on an exam paper.
Siew Jing: I'm glad that all of us agreed to work on this myth! Since I have always been using this method for myself while shopping, I have always wonder if this works on others too. Seems like neck-waist ratio truly works (for most individuals!), though there are still some limitations as seen from what we obtained in our results. Nevertheless, it was still a fun and great experience to be able to conduct this whole stats project out even though it was kind of difficult to use SPSS at first. But it turns out that SPSS is really useful once you get the hang of it!
Huimin: Statistics has never been my strongest subject, nor my area of interest. However, I have come to witness for myself how statistics is important in everyday life, and certainly, would have a big part to play in my very important final year project next year. This project has been fun in it's own way. We dread projects and presentations, but we know that at the day, we will learn something out from it. Using a blog as a form of presentation is a first, and is very interesting. Kudos to that.
No longer dread stats that much now. At least I know a little about how to go about using it effectively, and I'm sure I'll learn more as I go along.
Hui Wen: SPSS has made compilation and analysis of statistics much easier, with few clicks away to find out results like the correlation, how strong the relationship of our proposed idea and etc. Incorporating with the idea of waist and neck ratio, which is highly relevant to the shopping crowd(that's us!), has made the project more enjoyable. While it is not easy to navigate around with SPSS, I have learnt much and it will definitely be useful for our FYP as well as in the future.
Marilyn: I've always wondered whether this myth was true as everytime when there is a sale and long queues aat the changing rooms, I will see women putting the wasitband of the pants around their neck. So when this idea was proposed, I was quite interested in it as it will prove whether it has some truth in it. Though our results may not have proven the myth true, it was a good experience in all as we get to put what we had learnt in statistics to a real-life scenario and not on an exam paper.
Siew Jing: I'm glad that all of us agreed to work on this myth! Since I have always been using this method for myself while shopping, I have always wonder if this works on others too. Seems like neck-waist ratio truly works (for most individuals!), though there are still some limitations as seen from what we obtained in our results. Nevertheless, it was still a fun and great experience to be able to conduct this whole stats project out even though it was kind of difficult to use SPSS at first. But it turns out that SPSS is really useful once you get the hang of it!
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