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[url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-35812984 ]Commuters who shun car travel keep slimmer, study concludes[/url]
Congratulions for stating the bloody obvious, and exactly how much money was wasted on carrying out this study?.
Almost as bad as skipping through headlines and not reading into the study...
Interpretation
This study is the first to use UK Biobank data to address the topic of active commuting and obesity and shows robust, independent associations between active commuting and healthier bodyweight and composition. These findings support the case for interventions to promote active travel as a population-level policy response for prevention of obesity in mid-life.
What studies like this provide is decent robust evidence that can be used to influence policy. So when a proposed development for cycling infrastructure costs 150k the public health benefit delivered could be 250k or conversely not enough to make a significant difference.
Evidence based decision making needs evidence, too much gets decided by people who know whats what (in their heads) and have a series of preconceived ideas about the world they live in. Also the number of times things that seem like common and accepted correlations turn out to be bollocks means this sort of study is useful and valid.
Given that it's also the first study of it's type using UK Biobank Data it's not surprising there is a simpler starting point to asses the robustness of the data and research principles, if it goes on to show and enable more public health research from a big data pool then that is great for people, healthcare and the future of most people with planning and allocation of resources being done in a much more needs based way.