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Why do myths persist?

age_is_just_a_number
age_is_just_a_number Posts: 631 Member
in Debate Club
We’ve all heard them, believed them, learned they weren’t true. There are so many diet, nutrition and exercise myths. Why do you think they persist?
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Replies

  • AlexandraFindsHerself1971
    AlexandraFindsHerself1971 Posts: 3,106 Member
    A lot of people, even educated people, get a small amount of science/diet information and never bother to update it. Medical school doesn't teach much about diet, even.
  • gorple76
    gorple76 Posts: 162 Member
    Agree with all of the above. Basically critical thinking skills are in short supply amongst the general population. People very easily believe things, are often unquestioning and amazingly trusting. Particularly if it suits them. Easier to believe your weight problem is caused by things outside of your control than to take on a burden of responsibility for it, for instance. Also, people often think of something worked once for one person in a single situation, it can be generalised. People also don’t understand that things which are generalisable a rent universal. Again, lack of critical thinking skills.
  • SuzySunshine99
    SuzySunshine99 Posts: 2,989 Member
    Social media.
  • penguinmama87
    penguinmama87 Posts: 1,155 Member
    EyeOTS wrote: »
    Some of them were from aggressive add campaigns and positions in health eduction. Like the dairy industry pushing the importance or breakfast or 'milk, it does a body good' for a long long time

    I do think one reason some myths persist is because things like this - people who are viewed as authority figures change their advice seemingly on a whim, or it's not presented with sufficient nuance, or some information is withheld for some reason (sometimes bad, but even sometimes well-meant reasons.) Or educated guesses are presented as fact. That, perhaps rightly, makes some people suspicious and more willing to accept "alternative" theories - even if the new expert is even less credible than the one who's been rejected!

    There are several rather well-known stand-up bits about ever changing dietary advice in the twentieth century. I think sometimes the jokes only work because critical details are left out, but that perspective is probably held by a lot of people. They think how to eat healthily is literally unknowable and the people creating the guidelines have been paid off by lobbyists...and they're not *entirely* wrong!

    I'll admit that I am rather skeptical of quite a bit of mainstream news reporting on health issues. When you know a lot about a topic and see how it gets distorted by the average journalist or politician (not necessarily maliciously so, they're just not experts) it can make you skeptical about how they cover a lot of other topics, too. I do hate quackery, so what I often end up doing is going directly to studies and their methodology, etc if I'm highly motivated. But not everybody is trained or has the time available or inclination to do that. I can't really fault people for that, either.

    If it seems like I'm jumping all over the place...it's because I am, haha.
  • goal06082021
    goal06082021 Posts: 2,130 Member
    edited September 2021
    penguinmama87 wrote: »
    -snip-

    I'll admit that I am rather skeptical of quite a bit of mainstream news reporting on health issues. When you know a lot about a topic and see how it gets distorted by the average journalist or politician (not necessarily maliciously so, they're just not experts) it can make you skeptical about how they cover a lot of other topics, too. I do hate quackery, so what I often end up doing is going directly to studies and their methodology, etc if I'm highly motivated. But not everybody is trained or has the time available or inclination to do that. I can't really fault people for that, either.

    If it seems like I'm jumping all over the place...it's because I am, haha.

    To the bolded - would that that were the case for more people! IME folks are more likely to, for some reason, draw the opposite conclusion. You watch a 60 Minutes episode or listen to a podcast or whatever about a topic you're familiar with, you'll see all the parts the hosts get wrong or misrepresent. You might even call or write in to tell them so. But you don't have nearly so critical an ear or eye when they're covering something you don't know anything about, and people tend to defer to authority (or even just information presented authoritatively). So, if you're a professional llama groomer, your takeaway from the 60 Minutes episode about grooming llamas will not be "well heck, these guys don't know *kitten* about *kitten*," it'll be "well, obviously they don't know anything about llama grooming, but they probably know what they're talking about when it comes to [NFTs/rice sculpture/geopolitics/baking/something else you're not an expert in]."

    And it's well-documented that whatever information you encounter first, you're (1) more likely to believe and (2) more likely to continue believing even after being corrected and shown proof that the original information was wrong. Check out the vast Wikipedia archives about cognitive biases that exist and how they work.
  • Theoldguy1
    Theoldguy1 Posts: 2,496 Member
    Because not matter how wild, there is often a shred of truth (even if something only worked for a small group or very specific situation) in any myth?

    The "miracle" get spread and depending on how effective the media spreading it is, becomes sort of a fact.

    Plus as mentioned above by @cwolfman13 people love a magic bullet and will try hard to believe it if it offers any ray of hope.
  • ythannah
    ythannah Posts: 4,371 Member
    Money is the reason they're born, but the danged internet is the reason they persist. (Irony: I'm posting this on the danged internet :p )

    As far as I recall, the set point theory was a bestselling book at one time. So was the blood type diet, and the one about Gluten is the Source of All Evil and Everything That Ails You. So these theories/myths have found champions, or people who figure enough time has passed that people will have forgotten about it and they can pass it off as original, maybe with a little modern twist, and they get posted up somewhere. Where they attract a whole new band of followers who have come in search of a magic solution.

    Then it gets repeated over and over again because plagiarism is not a dirty word on the internet. I've seen entire paragraphs copy/pasted from one site to another, bad grammar intact.

    So I guess we're back to money because views = ad revenue.
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
    callsitlikeiseeit wrote: »
    I think everyone above is right. The answer why is long and convoluted and multi layered.

    But the short and simple answer is .... because myths are easy to believe.

    I 👍'ed this post, wanted to add that the wrong answer is that there's one answer. 🙂 (As is usually the case with people making decisions.)
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,092 Member
    There were no myths about dieting before the Internet. /s
  • SuzySunshine99
    SuzySunshine99 Posts: 2,989 Member
    lynn_glenmont wrote: »
    There were no myths about dieting before the Internet. /s

    I note the sarcasm. Of course you are correct, there have always been myths and legends about everything and anything since the dawn of civilisation.

    However, the internet has contributed astronomically to the ability to spread the myths instantly to millions of people with a click of a button. Anonymously, with no explanations, conversations, or questions asked.

    In the past, people might have questioned the information they heard from their crazy Aunt Mildred. But, now, if they Googled it or saw it on Tik Tok or their Facebook feed, then it's a reliable source.
  • nossmf
    nossmf Posts: 11,616 Member
    "Ice cream and seafood should not be eaten at the same meal."

    I dunno...I may have to buy into this one, from a strictly taste-centric perspective! lol

    People will believe just about anything if they trust the person telling them to actually know what they're talking about. Unfortunately, sometimes a person will take as gospel what another is saying, regardless whether the original person believes it or is trying to deceive anybody in the first place. For example,

    Person A: I heard a rumor that...
    Person B: Person A said it, so it must be true.
  • ythannah
    ythannah Posts: 4,371 Member
    lynn_glenmont wrote: »
    There were no myths about dieting before the Internet. /s

    They were just disguised as bestsellers, usually in hardcover.

    For kittens and giggles I searched NY Times non-fiction bestsellers for 1981. Never-Say-Diet Book by Richard Simmons and The Beverly Hills Diet by Judy Mazel occupied a lot of weeks that year.
  • NVintage
    NVintage Posts: 1,463 Member
    age_is_just_a_number wrote: »
    We’ve all heard them, believed them, learned they weren’t true. There are so many diet, nutrition and exercise myths. Why do you think they persist?

    https://youtu.be/1hcogiUUNnM
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,092 Member
    SuzySunshine99 wrote: »
    lynn_glenmont wrote: »
    There were no myths about dieting before the Internet. /s

    I note the sarcasm. Of course you are correct, there have always been myths and legends about everything and anything since the dawn of civilisation.

    However, the internet has contributed astronomically to the ability to spread the myths instantly to millions of people with a click of a button. Anonymously, with no explanations, conversations, or questions asked.

    In the past, people might have questioned the information they heard from their crazy Aunt Mildred. But, now, if they Googled it or saw it on Tik Tok or their Facebook feed, then it's a reliable source.

    In the past, people picked up a magazine with 20 diets myths in it every time they went to the grocery store or drug store, or the magazine just arrived in their mailbox, saving them the trouble of buying it at the grocery store or the drug store. And in my experience, with the way photocopies of the cabbage soup diet or whatever circulated among people, I don't think a lot of folks were questioning information they heard from their crazy Aunt Mildred. Or their neighbor or their friend or even their doctor was urging the same diet myth as Aunt Mildred, because that was the one that was popular that month, so it didn't make a difference that they weren't listening to crazy Aunt Mildred, who got it from a friend in her bridge group who got it from the pastor's wife who got it from her sister ...
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,092 Member
    ythannah wrote: »
    lynn_glenmont wrote: »
    There were no myths about dieting before the Internet. /s

    They were just disguised as bestsellers, usually in hardcover.

    For kittens and giggles I searched NY Times non-fiction bestsellers for 1981. Never-Say-Diet Book by Richard Simmons and The Beverly Hills Diet by Judy Mazel occupied a lot of weeks that year.

    /s = end sarcasm font.
  • age_is_just_a_number
    age_is_just_a_number Posts: 631 Member
    I’ve been watching the Debunked series on the Science Insider YouTube channel. I’m pleased to report that nearly all the nutrition, diet, fitness episodes I’ve watched I didn’t learn anything new. In other words, I had already identified the myths they were debunking.

    I think there are many reasons why myths persist. Two reasons that stick out for me are:
    1) we want to believe them
    2) there is a small grain of truth embedded in the myth.

    Eg., When you squat your knees should not go past your toes. We all know this is a myth. Where does it come from? I’ve not researched it but in my observation it exists because:
    1) for a trainer, it is easier to instruct people to keep their knees behind their toes than for the trainer to instruct people to engage their glutes and hamstrings. But if you knees are behind your toes there is a higher likelihood that your weight is in your heels and you are engaging your glutes and hamstrings.
    2) for many people it is ‘normal’ for them to squat with their knees behind their toes. It just isn’t a one size fits all instruction.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    The Buff Dudes cover some old diets:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFBt0q9gOm4
  • ythannah
    ythannah Posts: 4,371 Member
    lynn_glenmont wrote: »
    ythannah wrote: »
    lynn_glenmont wrote: »
    There were no myths about dieting before the Internet. /s

    They were just disguised as bestsellers, usually in hardcover.

    For kittens and giggles I searched NY Times non-fiction bestsellers for 1981. Never-Say-Diet Book by Richard Simmons and The Beverly Hills Diet by Judy Mazel occupied a lot of weeks that year.

    /s = end sarcasm font.

    Yes, I was being facetious, although I know that doesn't necessarily come across in text. :) Thus my reference to hardcover format, which sold at a higher price point than paperback, so the publishers could rake in the most money before the next hot diet book appeared.

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