It’s that time of year again in Chicago: winter. Its arrival was marked by the first snowfall and, just as predictably, the first story about a shoveling-related death. Local media outlets were quick to pronounce the dangers of shoveling and lament the deaths of the citizens who dare to clear the sidewalks in front of their homes. But is shoveling really as dangerous as the nightly news makes it out be?

The answer is not an obvious one. Weighing the merits of shoveling is similar to evaluating the effects of globalization in America: the positives (cheaper goods, GDP growth from international expansion) are harder to measure than the negatives (laid-off workers). Likewise, the benefits from a shoveling workout that may add minutes, hours, and even days to the lives of the brave mitten-clad individuals are harder to quantify than the number of deaths that occur while partaking in the activity.

Furthermore, these accounts generally attribute blame for the fatality to shoveling while ignoring several more important contributing factors. Congenital heart disease and a smoking habit made the individual susceptible to suffering a heart attack; shoveling was merely the straw that broke the camel’s heart. An American suffers a heart attack every 33 seconds. So, on that same snowy day, it’s very likely someone in Chicago suffered a heart attack while watching American Idol. Surely the media will not determine that bad singing was the cause of death.

These reports about snow shoveling fatalities illustrate several important lessons about measurement. First off, harder to measure items are often ignored, rather than properly explained as mitigating factors. Also, people tend to assign causality for an outcome to an obvious activity without truly understanding the underlying inputs. Keeping this in mind, people should be able to focus on the truly risky behaviors they engage in…like raking leaves.