Moderators: JeffN, f1jim, carolve, Heather McDougall
roundcoconut wrote:I think I kinda understood something about why the attention given to the Exercise Paradox kinda pisses me off!
It came to me as I was listening to somebody on public radio talk about the terms “false facts” and “fully manufactured facts”. The thing that the person on the radio said, was that when a person is asked to testify truthfully in court, they are asked to tell “the truth — the WHOLE truth”, and nothing but the truth.
He said that it’s more than possible to zoom in on some aspect of something to make it look bad or ineffective, when in reality, it is strongly positive and very health promoting. But you can certainly zoom in awkwardly, and give people the impression that they shouldn’t bother a heck of a lot with any type of movement. Just lie back and relax! Exercising has been debunked!
roundcoconut wrote:So there y’go. The big picture, and telling the whole truth, in the context of the overall body of research. A person, or a story, or a media outlet, or a study — that seeks to present something as useless and ineffective — when the larger body of evidence shows the reverse — is giving a false picture, in order to surprise, or to get published, or to get on NPR. But we have to see that for what it is — untruthful.
JeffN wrote:Yes, some of it is irresponsible and misleading but from my experience, most actually comes from well meaning, good intentioned people just trying to do good but not fully understanding the concepts. Their desire to help outpaces their understanding of their understanding and knowledge.
roundcoconut wrote:JeffN wrote:Yes, some of it is irresponsible and misleading but from my experience, most actually comes from well meaning, good intentioned people just trying to do good but not fully understanding the concepts. Their desire to help outpaces their understanding of their understanding and knowledge.
I wonder if you’ve ever considered the idea that any body of commercial interests that has enough money to hire lobbyists, is probably also hiring people to represent their interests in the social media. It makes total sense to me that this would be the case.
“Yes, I totally agree with you. I have said to colleagues recently that when I first started my career the worst things we had to deal with was the annual fad diet book and the few supplement pushers. But when a diet book came out, it would get some initial press and within 6 months, it was old news and everyone had moved on. Now it never dies nor do any sensational stories about studies that are misrepresented in the media or just plain bad studies to begin with. They continue to be passed along, quoted in blogs and articles and links posted on social media. Even studies that have been discredited and withdrawn from journals live on. It is exhausting to try to deal with this day after day."
JeffN wrote:it seems like what I was asking for when I posted in your thread, has been lost in all this. I am only looking for a specific example of how the media is misusing and/or misrepresenting the Exercise Paradox
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