There goes the media, up to their old tricks again

If you prefer to digest thinly supported news articles with large doses of subjectivity then head right over to US News & World Report for their latest rack and stack of diets. This report has been done for several years and seems to be a regurgitation of the years before. While the factors used to determine whether a diet ranks high or not are sound the method for which each is determined is clearly subjective and not based on any presented evidence.

Dr. Loren Cordain has provided rebutals to these reports in which US News has dismissed the cited studies as scientifically insignificant. This is quite interesting since for many of the other diets there is no science behind the effects at all and in the determinations of the report the reasoning provided for each are the subjective determination of the "experts".

Please ask yourself, Who are these experts? and What was the method and details of the rational for the rankings?. If scientific studies are dismissed yet subjective non-normalized measures of a panel of experts are fair game then what value is the ranking at all? But wait, there is an answer to that question.

And the answer is... website traffic. It is the start of a new year and resolutions are in full swing. The number one resolution according to the University of Scranton, Journal of Clinical Psychology is weight loss. So logic would say write some stories about fitness and diet, if you want to get people on your site and looking at your brand. If you want to get them really interested create some controversy. Throw in the Google most searched diet at the bottom of the ranking with some very general dismissals of its validity and bam you have an irresistible news story. It has been the same story for years now and gets US News & World Report enough traffic to get some air play on prime time national news and virtually every news website. If you search for the report it actually takes a bit of work to find the report itself since so many other news outlets and blogs are regurgitating the results and many taking the opportunity to sucker punch Paleo to also benefit from the explosion of Paleo's popularity.


If you are new to Paleo or find yourself frustrated with the results of the rankings, take a minute to read some of the justifications. You will quickly see that this report is useless and is borderline irresponsible by implying the results are based on some kind of sound reasoning. Paleo is often painted into a corner by those that do not take the time to understand its basis. "You can only eat what caveman did.", "There is too much meat and that's dangerous", "It is a low carb diet", etc. In fact, Paleo is truly about taking historic understanding, current science, and fresh unprocessed whole foods, then applying that at an individual level for optimum health and performance. I tell everyone that I discuss Paleo with, if you want to get healthy, lean, and perform at a high level, look to those that have taken that journey and have become healthy, lean, high performers. Ask those people what they eat and how they exercise.

Thanks
Chuck

Right after I wrote this Rob Wolf dropped this response that is worth a read. http://robbwolf.com/2014/01/10/news-ranks-paleo-diet-2014-deja-vu-again/

and another

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/why-does-the-paleo-diet-continue-to-receive-low-points-from-established-authorities/#axzz2qUNidFaM