It was on the homepage of a major news/email site.
"Lose 1 Inch of Belly Fat in Just 7 Minutes!"
So naturally, I clicked on it, and I was greeted by the above headline with an image sort of like this:
I continued reading the article, which was based off of a recent study. Here are the cliffnotes:
- Recruited 29 normal-weight adults who did not engage in regular physical activity
- Had some of them perform a 7 minute exercise regimen daily
- Had some of them perform no exercise daily (control group)
- All participants did not make any changes to their diet.
- After 6 weeks, the group who performed exercise actually ended up losing weight, while the other group lost nothing.
Oh wow! Just seven minutes! They lost weight exercising, compared to people who didn't exercise??
.... and that was the end of the article.
As a trainer, nutrition coach, blah blah blah (read: someone invested in the industry and who cares and obsesses), this is a classic example of 2 things:
1) Something is better than nothing
2) Using a study (whether it came from a good source or not) to bolster surface engagement.
The study's results come from very obvious parameters (some exercise vs. none). And SO often, news sites publishers use these studies to garner attention. And this lead me to a big realization...
Often with mainstream fitness content, the emotion of knowing more than your friends do is what's sold - not health advice.
Unfortunately, misleading articles such as these are very common nowadays. I can't scroll through Facebook without seeing clickbait article such as these on my feed. I wonder if there is any way to filter out these bogus articles like email spam does
ReplyDelete