For Editors
How a manuscript is screened, reviewed and decided at this journal, and the judgments that obesity research in particular asks an editor to make.
ISSN 2574-450X Review single-blind or double-blind on request Decisions rest with the editors
What an editor does here
The decision is the editor’s. Reviewers advise.
A handling editor takes a manuscript from screening to decision: judges whether it belongs in the journal, chooses who should assess it, reads the reports against the manuscript rather than counting them, and takes a decision they can defend to the authors.
Editorial authority rests with the journal’s editors. The publisher does not overrule an editorial decision, and no fee, membership, service or role has any part in one.
Initial screening
What to establish before a manuscript goes anywhere near a reviewer.
-
01
Scope
Apply the journal’s fit rule: The manuscript must address a substantive question about obesity, its determinants or consequences, or its assessment, prevention or management. A focused subgroup or effect-modification analysis can qualify; recording body weight or including participants with obesity alone does not establish fit. A study that includes participants with obesity or measures body weight without addressing a substantive obesity question is outside scope. Multivariable and subgroup analyses can qualify when the obesity question is central to the analysis. The boundary tests for nutrition, endocrinology, diabetes, cardiovascular medicine, exercise science, surgery, digital health and basic science are on the aims and scope page.
-
02
Article type and completeness
The manuscript is within the limits for its type, carries a title page with the declarations, and includes the reporting checklist for its design. An incomplete submission is returned for the missing items rather than sent to review.
-
03
Ethics and registration
An ethics statement naming the committee and reference number or an applicable exemption; consent statements where required; and trial registration where the study is interventional. A missing registration for a trial is resolved before review, not after.
-
04
Basic soundness
Whether the design could answer the question asked, and whether the abstract reports what the paper actually contains. A manuscript whose abstract promises results the paper does not report is returned at this point.
Choosing and managing reviewers
Who is asked, and what is asked of them.
-
Selection
Match the expertise to the manuscript, not to the subject area
- A pharmacotherapy trial needs someone who can assess the safety reporting; a dietary intervention needs someone who can assess adherence measurement; a surgical series needs someone who can assess follow-up completeness. Where a manuscript spans two, invite two.
- Invite a methodological or statistical reviewer where the analysis carries the conclusion.
-
Conflicts
Check before inviting
Check institution, recent co-authorship, and any commercial relationship to the intervention under study. Do not invite a reviewer with an interest in the product, device, program or procedure being evaluated.
-
Model and number
What the journal runs and how many are asked
- Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request.
- Manuscripts that proceed to external peer review are normally evaluated by at least two independent subject-matter experts.
- Where a reviewer declines, ask them to suggest an alternative with the right expertise.
-
Double-blind requests
When an author has asked for it
- When double-blind review is requested, editors must ensure that author-identifying information is not shared with reviewers.
-
Confidentiality
What a reviewer may not do
Reviewers hold the manuscript in confidence, do not share it outside the review, and do not use unpublished material. After submitting the review, reviewers should securely delete downloaded manuscript files and must not retain or use unpublished material.
Taking the decision
What the decision is based on, and what it must tell the authors.
Editorial decisions are based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal.
Reviewer reports inform the decision; they do not determine it. Where reports disagree, read the manuscript against both rather than seeking a third vote, and say in the decision letter which points you considered decisive.
A decision letter states the decision, the reasons in the editor’s own words, and — where revision is invited — which points must be addressed for the manuscript to be reconsidered. An author should not have to infer the decision from the reports.
Judgments specific to this field
The claims that most often need tempering in obesity research, and the interests that most often need checking.
-
Claims
Do not let a result carry more than it can
- Short-term weight loss is not universal clinical benefit. A twelve-week result is not a two-year result, and the manuscript should not be written as if it were.
- An observed association is not causation, however plausible the mechanism.
- A change in body mass index is not by itself an improvement in health. Where health outcomes were not measured, the conclusion should not claim them.
- Interpret findings within the design’s strengths and limitations; report uncertainty and limits to generalizability. Ask for the conclusion to be stated at the strength the design supports.
- Where an effect varies substantially between participants, ask for that to be reported rather than averaged away.
-
Interests
Where commercial influence is most likely
- Anti-obesity medications and their manufacturers.
- Medical devices and bariatric technologies.
- Commercial weight-management programs and services.
- Dietary supplements and meal-replacement products.
- Food and nutrition industry sponsorship.
- Where a study evaluates a product and is funded by its maker, that is not a reason to reject, but it is a reason to look hard at the outcome selection, the comparator and the handling of harms, and to require the interest to be stated plainly.
-
Populations
Handle with particular care
- Children and adolescents, and any study where assent and guardian consent must be evidenced.
- Participants who are pregnant, older, or otherwise more exposed to harm from an intervention.
- Data from which a participant could be identified, including combinations of indirect details and any identifiable photograph or measurement.
- Terminology. Require person-respectful language throughout; return manuscripts that frame obesity as a personal failing or in terms of appearance.
-
Scope
Protect the boundary without narrowing the journal
Hold the fit rule, but do not mistake an unfamiliar method for an off-scope one. Qualitative work, implementation research, measurement studies, negative results and health-services research are all in scope when obesity is the question.
Integrity and conflicts
What to do when the editor is too close, and when something is wrong.
- Recusal
- An editor with an institutional, financial, commercial or personal interest in a submission is recused and the manuscript is reassigned. This applies to submissions from your own institution or research group as much as to commercially sponsored work.
- Your own manuscripts
- A manuscript you have authored is handled independently of you. You take no part in selecting reviewers, have no access to the review file, and take no part in the decision.
- Suspected misconduct
- Where plagiarism, duplicate publication, fabrication, image manipulation or undisclosed conflict is suspected, pause the handling and refer the matter to the editorial office. Give the authors the concern and an opportunity to respond; where it concerns research conduct rather than the publication, the authors’ institution is notified. The process is set out on the editorial policies page.
- Appeals
- An appeal is considered by an editor who did not take the original decision.
- Artificial intelligence
- Do not upload a manuscript or any part of it to a tool where confidentiality cannot be assured, and do not delegate an editorial judgment to one.
- Charges
- An article processing charge arises only after acceptance and plays no part in any decision you take. If a question about payment reaches you, pass it to the editorial office rather than answering it alongside an editorial matter.
Joining the editorial board
The journal is building its board across the whole of its scope.
Researchers and clinicians working anywhere across the journal’s aims and scope are invited to put themselves forward. Write to [email protected] with a current institutional affiliation, an ORCID iD, and the areas of the scope you would be willing to handle.
The current board is listed on the editorial board page, with each member’s role, institution, country and research interests.
Journal of Obesity Management (JOM) · ISSN 2574-450X · Crossref DOI prefix 10.14302 · published open access by Open Access Pub under CC BY 4.0, authors retain copyright · editorial policies · for reviewers · editorial board.