This is comparing one measure for each of the 15 countries against three other measures (cabinet minister's average obesity Vs. Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, World Bank worldwide governance indicator Control of Corruption, and Index of Public Integrity).
The 299 is the combined number of cabinet ministers whose weight were averaged, which is a single measure per location, not the actual subject of the statistical question (which is a country, not an individual cabinet minister).
If the available sample is too small, some questions may not be answerable via statistical means, at least with any high degree of confidence.
This one may not be answerable via this methodology. Even if you did all 200 countries, there just may not be enough high quality data to reach a satisfactory conclusion.
I'm not even saying the conclusion is wrong, I am saying the data doesn't exist to determine if it is right OR wrong.
The question is how many variables have they tested before settling on obesity.
Every single signal points for non-significance of this article. What, of course, is just reason to test it in another population. But instead people will just keep repeating it as if the findings were true.
This is comparing one measure for each of the 15 countries against three other measures (cabinet minister's average obesity Vs. Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, World Bank worldwide governance indicator Control of Corruption, and Index of Public Integrity).
The 299 is the combined number of cabinet ministers whose weight were averaged, which is a single measure per location, not the actual subject of the statistical question (which is a country, not an individual cabinet minister).
It also isn't in a peer reviewed journal at all.