Our final post on introducing churnalism moves onto "truly absurd relationships that have been proposed between things some of us choose to do and our health."
Thanks for this. If I hear one more conversation about diet and exercise at a family function (where everyone is an "expert ") I'm going to vomit. This is borderline idolatry and becomes a measure of your level of "positive-ness" and willingness to avoid all conversation about more serious, and possibly more challenging, issues. In fact, doesn't churnalism encourage this superficial interaction?
Kid comes home from school and tells dad he thinks he flunked his math test. Dad immediately fires back, "that's negative thinking son, stay positive." Son pauses for a bit and then says, " Dad, I'm positive I flunked my math test".
I'm not sure why you're looking a studies from so many years ago. One way to make this more relevant would be to pinpoint common statistical and logical errors in pre-pandemic health journalism and connect them to stories that led to unrealistic beliefs about universal masking or other pandemic mitigation measures.
“Because you are dealing with medical problems, like being sick or overweight—even if you do not yet carry formal medical diagnoses—you might be less optimistic than someone lucky enough to be in exceptional health.”
Or perhaps social biases, revealed in sentences such as the above, in which being “overweight”, whatever you mean by that, is described as a medical problem but somehow different from being sick, contribute to pessimism among the “overweight”?
Good piece though my guess is the potential for reverse causality bias in the Optimism article was less than your discussion suggests. That would be the case if relatively few developed chronic disease in the 1-2 year window. Perhaps a sensitivity analysis could help gauge the threat to validity.
Confounding can also hide a relationship, as in this example:
https://twitter.com/daniel_corcos/status/1559922528021266435
Even professional epidemiologists can be misled.
Or in other words; people in good health tend to live longer.
So the Japanese tubs avoid the issue. Good to know, but haven't seen many in houses I've lived in. Wonder if adding a sauna is easier?
The Finns are, of course, the happiest country in the world. Again. (couldn't resist)
Thanks for this. If I hear one more conversation about diet and exercise at a family function (where everyone is an "expert ") I'm going to vomit. This is borderline idolatry and becomes a measure of your level of "positive-ness" and willingness to avoid all conversation about more serious, and possibly more challenging, issues. In fact, doesn't churnalism encourage this superficial interaction?
“Our inner curmudgeon.” Now that made me smile.
Appreciative of the way you are systematically laying out what has always driven me nuts about these studies.
Kid comes home from school and tells dad he thinks he flunked his math test. Dad immediately fires back, "that's negative thinking son, stay positive." Son pauses for a bit and then says, " Dad, I'm positive I flunked my math test".
I'm an old white female who's curious. This post made me smile. As summer turns to fall in the PNW, I may buy a sauna. Thanks for your work.
Great article! I am more curious to know if Vinay and Adam are F1 fans like me ? and if yes who do they support
Can you provide analysis on all of the supplemental vitamin D claims, not only with covid, but in general?
Could you guys provide some analysis of the following article about
"The Effects of Postprandial Exercise on Glucose Control in Individuals with Type 2 Diabetes: A Systematic Review"?
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-018-0864-x
The data is behind a paywall.
I'm not sure why you're looking a studies from so many years ago. One way to make this more relevant would be to pinpoint common statistical and logical errors in pre-pandemic health journalism and connect them to stories that led to unrealistic beliefs about universal masking or other pandemic mitigation measures.
“Because you are dealing with medical problems, like being sick or overweight—even if you do not yet carry formal medical diagnoses—you might be less optimistic than someone lucky enough to be in exceptional health.”
Or perhaps social biases, revealed in sentences such as the above, in which being “overweight”, whatever you mean by that, is described as a medical problem but somehow different from being sick, contribute to pessimism among the “overweight”?
Perhaps you will move onto more consequential topics?
Good piece though my guess is the potential for reverse causality bias in the Optimism article was less than your discussion suggests. That would be the case if relatively few developed chronic disease in the 1-2 year window. Perhaps a sensitivity analysis could help gauge the threat to validity.
Brilliantly done. Perhaps you could issue in synoptic fashion a numbered "List" of the Sins of Churnalism.