Nearly four decades of nutrition research funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) may be invalid because the method used to collect the data was seriously flawed. A study, led by Dr. Edward Archer, exercise scientist and epidemiologist at the University of South Carolina Arnold School of Public Health, has demonstrated significant limitations in the measurement protocols used in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). The findings, published in PLOS ONE (The Public Library of Science ONE), reveal that a majority of the nutrition data collected by the NHANES are not “physiologically credible,” Dr. Archer said. These results suggest that without valid population-level data, speculations regarding the role of energy intake in the rise in the prevalence of obesity are without empirical support.