Can't trust the headline!
There has been a lot of talk recently focused on "Fake News." President Trump seems to mention it nearly everyday! And I cannot seem to scroll through a Facebook feed without seeing something that has been shared by a friend. Often these articles are from sources like Infowars or Occupy Democrats, and if you were just to read the headlines, you would think that our world is crumbling around us. If you take the time to look into these sources, their biases become readily apparent, and you learn to take what they have to say with a grain of salt. Let's be honest for a moment, we are still privileged enough to live in the greatest country in the world. However, we need to be more curious and take the time to look at the facts before we buy into the headlines.
Earlier this week, I was a little hot under the collar! I read a headline, that seemed to fly in the face of what I believe to be true regarding proper nutrition for weight loss, and I allowed it to get under my skin, BEFORE I even read the article! Unfortunately, once I read the article I got even more frustrated, because the headline was lazy! Even more surprising than the shockingly bad headline, is the fact that this research was published in 1997. That was 20 years ago! So why did this person chose to dust it off and share it with their almost 10,000 followers on Twitter? The headline in question came from a tweet and it read:
"There are no differences in weight loss between a high- vs. low-sugar diet"
Here is a link to the research that the author cited to make this statement.
LINK
EVERYTHING that I know screams that this cannot possibly be true! So I needed to dive deeper and read the research that "supported" this statement. After reading through the articles the flaws in this approach become blatantly obvious. Here are just a couple:
1) Both diets included in the study (Yes only two options, and neither of these diets are good options) contained an average of 71% of the caloric consumption coming from CARBOHYDRATES! 11% from Fat and 19% from protein... That ratio is absolutely ridiculous, UNLESS you are trying to GAIN weight. I don't know any nutritionist or dietician that would recommend that anyone (except for a marathon runner) consume that many carbs in one day.
3) In the paper, an example of the diet for one single day was published... I don't even know what to say about the food choices that were made. Take a look for yourself (you'll have to click on it because the font is microscopic).
Do you see any problems with this diet? WHERE ARE THE VEGETABLES? Before they eat dinner, is there anything on there that is healthy?
And then the authors use their final sentence in the paper to state..."We therefor conclude that the use of sucrose (sugar) in a weight loss regimen is unlikely to cause problems for the average patient, as long as the total energy intake is restricted." I will keep my commentary on this statement as clean as I can and just say "B.S."
Moral of the story here - Don't assume that the headline that you read, speaks the truth! It is just aimed to get you to read the article, even if the article is filled with utter nonsense!
