I hoped to lose weight over the holiday season; alas, I gained a pound. Searching the internet for opinions about it, I came upon this surprising article,<\/a> which suggests that the average weight gain over the holiday season is perhaps less than a pound.<\/p>\n Let’s be safe and call the mean gain exactly a pound. A mean, without a standard deviation, is of limited use. (\u03bc=mean, \u03c3=standard deviation) However, we can estimate \u03c3 by another claim of the article – its estimate that less than 10% of people experience weight gain 5lbs or more over the holidays.<\/p>\n According to the normal distribution table, 90% of the distribution is less than \u03bc+1.28\u03c3. With the estimate \u03bc=1lb, this implies 1+1.28\u03c3=5\u21921.28\u03c3=4\u2192\u03c3=4\/1.28=3.125lbs. Apparently, the average holiday weight gain could be 1lb, with standard deviation 3.125lbs.<\/p>\n I’ll be commenting on implications of this estimate in a coming post. In the meantime, let’s keep working off that holiday gain:)<\/p>\n Source:<\/p>\n Harnett, Donald L. and James L. Murphy. Statistical Analysis for Business and
Economics<\/i>. Don Mills: Addison-Wesley, 1993.<\/p>\n