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The work looks useful and valuable to this area of study. But WaPo and other media outlets persist in a ubiquitous and terrible trend in science reporting, esp
by ajarmst 11y ago
The work looks useful and valuable to this area of study. But WaPo and other media outlets persist in a ubiquitous and terrible trend in science reporting, especially those associated with lifestyle and healt : "Here is a study which has different findings than the other studies we've been reporting on, all that research is now overturned! Burn your standing desk!" Of course, in a few months, someone will publish another study calling this one into question, and they'll tell us all to go out and buy new standing desks. As we all know, science doesn't work that way. This study needs to be put into context with other studies, if it contradicts those studies, that needs to be discussed, future studies that might resolve the discrepancy should be identified, limitations on the applicability of this study and on the ones it contradicts should be pointed out, changes in the model we use to understand the effects of mobility and posture on health should be discussed, etc. etc.
Instead, we get serial repetitions of "standing is bad", "standing is good", "it doesn't really matter". I have to look at a calendar to figure out if the caffeine in my coffee is slowly killing me or turning me into a focused super-intellect. Won't someone please, please tell me if I should be ingesting wine and/or chocolate this week?
- melling 11y agoIt's unfortunate that we can't directly measure anything to determine if standing is helpful or even how bad sitting is for the body.
- stfu 11y agoBut isn't that the whole point? That unless you are doing certain things to the extreme, they might be good or bad. That things as complex as health are rarely shaped by just one isolated variable.
- skimpycompiler 11y agoMeta-analysis answers all of the questsions, one can't be sure before one is done.
- pizza234 11y agoAudiences of those articles (nutrition, "cheap" health advice, garbage fitness, and so on) simply want trivial, feel-good advice; the media just fulfill that wish. It's the cultural substrate which is misguided - having an interest in feeling good about something, rather than actually accomplishing it - but this is personal choice.
- x5n1 11y agoA lot of science is like that these days. You can find enough evidence for anything because the fact is that you are dealing with people and people are individuals with individual chemistry, at least that's a part of it.