Do reducing diets work? Dr. Linda Stern and her colleagues recruited obese adults at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Pennsylvania. Half of the participants were randomly assigned to a low-carbohydrate diet and the other half were assigned to a low-fat diet. Researchers measured each participantโs change in weight and cholesterol level after six months and again after one year. Subjects in the low-carb diet group lost significantly more weight than subjects in the low-fat diet group during the first six months of the study. At the end of a year, however, the average weight loss for subjects in the two groups was not significantly different.
(a) Why did researchers randomly assign the subjects to the diet treatments?
(b) Explain to someone who knows little statistics what โlost significantly more weightโ means.
(c) The subjects in the low-carb diet group lost an aver-age of kg in a year. The subjects in the low-fat diet group lost an average of kg. Explain how this infor-
mation could be consistent with the fact that weight loss in the two groups was not significantly different.