Still haven't gotten to see the full paper, but if (as the wording seemed to imply) the association listed was not something they initially set out to test but only did so after gathering their data and then seeing such an association then it is indeed data dredging as defined in the wikipedia article I cited. As stated, such associations only hypothesized once the data is in hand are good for directing future studies but should not be used to draw conclusions based on the initial study data.

The basic problem is that the usual statistical test for significance is at the 0.05 level - i.e. only one chance in 20 that it happens by chance. But when you first gather data and then look for associations there are a very large number of possible ones to consider. For every 20 possible associations one of them may well appear to be "statistically significant" by the usual test even if the data is completely random.

And no, I haven't noticed your claimed behavior of patients at doctors' offices. But then I haven't been to one in a few years except when visiting my daughter and stopping by her office. Most of her patients are wearing diapers rather than lycra, but she does give the older ones Disney and Superhero band-aids when they get their shots. Was there a point to your tale?