Re: An Effortless Segue

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The length of your scorn comprises the length of your adulthood plus the length of your weeness.


Posted by: Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 10:06 AM
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Yes, my understanding is that it's been the CW for a while now.

The media can't be relied to present these things avccurately.


Posted by: David Weman | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 10:22 AM
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I hate low-fat food. I think it's disgusting, wrong, and completely misses the point of eating. If I want cheese, I want real cheese, not pretend cheese. If I need to watch my fat intake, I'll have less cheese. And avocados are glorious.

But yeah, this article has been CW for a while.


Posted by: Cala | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 10:31 AM
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It looks like thw Stanford press release claims the findings are novel when they're not to make more journalists write about it, and that it worked.


Posted by: David Weman | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 10:41 AM
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LOL, everything OLD is NEW....being ancient (hit the 60 year) remember rarely carried EXTRA pounds for long just do to being rather active but muched and gulped burgers and malts and cakes and cookies as well as salads and fruits and just about all else...Then hit mid twenties, had some thoughts and whatever, did the nutritonal with a vengence diet...but had the likes of Adelle Davis and Gibbons and Linus P for guides and for most part, was basic nutitrition is a variety and more important along with the variety NOT FILLED WITH PRESERVATIVES and whatevers....Have one thing regarding the girths of today and especially in the young...Our diets include those hormoned beef/pork/chicken consumables and lets face it...if it girthed up the food source befor we consumed , well chances are we are consuming those hormones as well and throwing body metabs out of whack !! We've pesticied our fruits and veggies as well (REALLY never remember ever getting "salmanella" from eating a fresch pick from a garden , but recent green onions and strawberries and cantalope and etc UNWASHED pose big WARNINGS these days...some in large part due to imports and where ground water not so "safe" (contaminated...) gets used to water the plantings and such is "said" to be the culprit for wariness...Can remember forays as a chld into the vegetable/fruit patches ...and just grabbing and perhaps, rubbing lightly on shirt or whatever to remove the "dirt" but immediate consumption and NEVER had a problem....Ah, "those" were the days...Like said, am ANCIENT but do miss such times...Would gather thou , moderation is a key that helps, that and moving and being active, more than mere couch potato or too long online.....


Posted by: Bozley44 | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 11:18 AM
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I think yes this has long been common wisdom, but it was based before on something like intuitive nutritional understanding etc. and that this is one of he first very large, long-term studies to convincingly prove what we already knew. Which is mostly useless, but not altogether useless (as sometimes such studies instead dis-prove our intuitions.)


Posted by: Urple | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 11:36 AM
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Uh, speaking to that point...long held basic innate "knows"...Its like obeying CRAVINGS...usually the body trying to "tell ya' something"...Mine is known to tell me it NEEDS and MUST HAVE chocalate at times and LOL, it turns out they have "discovered" many important reasons why C "IS" good for the body...(absolutely love that and would like to have print outs to hand out ...LOL , especially when seeming to be perhaps over buying/indulging or hoarding for time of necessity....) Also remember, that like with children...never FORCE to clean the plate, etc and if nothing else , give them peanut butter for nutritional needs and not to worry they are going to allow themselves to starve to death just cuz overyly picky at what is offered...Put the food there, if hungry, will eat...and will drink as well...the body lets one KNOW, just follow basic instincts and many problema's could likely be resolved regarding "dietary" intakes !


Posted by: Bozley44 | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 11:51 AM
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Before you were wee, avocados and natural peanut butter weren't fattening?


Posted by: Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 3:00 PM
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That's right Gary. Now let's discuss sex with Oprah Winfrey.


Posted by: Tia | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 3:05 PM
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(I know you're an editor and I'm not, so maybe I'm just wrong, but it seems to me that "since I was wee" is fine at the end of that sentence; it doesn't create ambiguity because if I'd been talking about avocados' state change, I would have said "have been fattening since I was wee.")


Posted by: Tia | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 3:08 PM
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I'm more concerned about SB's assertion that Tia has a weeness.


Posted by: Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 3:10 PM
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Ssh, my weeness is a secret, Weiner.


Posted by: Tia | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 3:18 PM
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"Her Royal Weeness" to you, Weiner.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 3:20 PM
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Urple's point is really important. This "why bother conducting a study, since everybody knows X" attitude is really pernicious. Until it's studied you don't know, you only believe. The study takes a long time, so if it confirms your belief it feels like old news. But it's not. You didn't have the results of this study before, and now you do. So now you know something that you had believed. We can talk about "ways of knowing", but not when it comes to public health.


Posted by: mealworm | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 3:27 PM
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Is its length also a secret? (Also, what mealworm said.)


Posted by: Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 3:30 PM
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This "why bother conducting a study, since everybody knows X" attitude is really pernicious.

No one here said that, mealworm, though I agree the attitude is pernicious in general.


Posted by: Tia | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 3:31 PM
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Also, though 'manhood' is a ridiculous euphemism and in these circumstances some gender-neutrality might be called for, 'adulthood' is just ridiculous. And why would you be adding the length of the weeness and the length of the adulthood? Aren't they the same thing?


Posted by: Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 3:41 PM
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And was the weeness cut short?


Posted by: Becks | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 3:42 PM
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In 17, one occurrence of 'ridiculous' s/b something cleverer


Posted by: Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 3:43 PM
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I trust everyone has heard that Cheney has taken to shooting voters.

Tia, I was just teasing, I hope you know. (Although I'd say that "Ever since I was wee, I've scorned anyone who tried to tell me I shouldn't eat an avocado, or natural peanut butter, on the grounds that either was fattening" might be one of several possible variants that might be slightly better; but I wuz just funnin', or trying to.)


Posted by: Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 4:01 PM
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Sorry, "adulthood" s/b "womanhood". As her weeness passed into her womanhood, her scorn endured. That's what I meant. Now stop trying to make it sound dirty, you pervs.


Posted by: Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 4:35 PM
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18: The weeness grew out of it.


Posted by: Tia | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 5:52 PM
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As her weeness passed into her womanhood

This I'm supposed to stop trying to make sound dirty?


Posted by: Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 6:08 PM
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My womanhood is longer than my weeness.


Posted by: Tia | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 6:29 PM
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Are you saying your weeness is too small?


Posted by: Michael | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 6:35 PM
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I thought we already knew that unsaturated fats weren't bad for you. Or was that not the consensus?

The media can't be relied to present these things avccurately.

But yeah, this article has been CW for a while.

Look, all I'm saying is that CW ≠ fact. Surely unfogged is one of the last places this needs to pointed out?

People seem to be criticizing an article that reports on the results of a large, well-funded study whose results confirm something that people think they already know, because it doesn't "feel like news". Whereas I wish every science article were about studies like this. Instead we get a continuous stream of articles on studies conducted on, like, 4 people "proving" that the latest fad will magically prevent cancer or whatever. Then, by the time the study that actually has decent statistics gets done, either it's not news because it confirms the earlier "proof" or it's not news because the CW has already moved onto some other fad. "Feels like news" is a standard on par with "truthiness".


Posted by: mealworm | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 6:36 PM
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Yay, data! (Happy now?)


Posted by: Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 6:39 PM
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Apologies for breaking the rhythm of the "weeness" riff. Which actually sounds like it would be quite painful.


Posted by: mealworm | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 6:40 PM
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Well, I would be, if I hadn't broken the weeness.


Posted by: mealworm | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 6:53 PM
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mealworm, perhaps I was relying too much on people reading my post with the context of the broader media portrayal in mind. I see all these headlines that say something like "Low-fat diet doesn't prevent disease!" as if the finding was surprising. The more news organs report the finding as surprising or remarkable, the more obscure the actual results of the study are. Since most people who hear anything about nutrition have heard that saturated fats are bad for you, the reporting sounds like the study has somehow upsets that consensus, when it doesn't: the intervention didn't create separate groups that reduced their saturated fat consumption without reducing unsaturated fat consumption. In fact, I felt confused when reading reportage on the study (not that particular Stanford press report, but other media reports)--was there some contrary CW that was upset? That was my question: is this a finding that contradicts older thinking, or does it confirm it? I think what may have happened is in the years the study was being conducted other, smaller scale research was done that started making the saturated/unsaturated distinction clearer, and in retrospect the designers of the study might have gotten a group of significant results if they'd done a low-saturated, regular unsaturated intervention. I don't think anyone means to suggest that you shouldn't try to replicate results, do lots of research, etc.


Posted by: Tia | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 6:54 PM
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It ho, ugh!

T'weal re a dyk.

Newt hat unsat.

U rated "F" at "S".

We rent "B" ad for you.

Or wast "hat" not the con?

Sens us the me!

Di a cant, bere lied top.

Resent the seth-ing.

Sav cc.

U'r a tely.


Posted by: Medicated Repunctuator | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 9:46 PM
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Indeed, quite inavccurate.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 9:55 PM
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