Annoying headline about weight loss on CNN site
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ClayandRocks
Posts: 69 Member
"Weight loss may mean a risk of death for older adults, study shows"
I find this common in press coverage of health (and often other science). The result is oversimplified to make a headline that generates clicks and the article barely provides enough information to understand the issues.
Early in the article is the quote "Our study found that even a 5% weight loss increases mortality risk, particularly in older men". Only later do we learn "But the study wasn’t able to distinguish if people involved lost weight intentionally or unintentionally"
The last third of the article does a better job of covering possible explanations for unintended weight loss and how they can be associated with health concerns, but I think the article could have been written much differently to accentuate from the start how unintentional weight loss is certainly something to bring up with your doctor.
I find this common in press coverage of health (and often other science). The result is oversimplified to make a headline that generates clicks and the article barely provides enough information to understand the issues.
Early in the article is the quote "Our study found that even a 5% weight loss increases mortality risk, particularly in older men". Only later do we learn "But the study wasn’t able to distinguish if people involved lost weight intentionally or unintentionally"
The last third of the article does a better job of covering possible explanations for unintended weight loss and how they can be associated with health concerns, but I think the article could have been written much differently to accentuate from the start how unintentional weight loss is certainly something to bring up with your doctor.
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They choose that headline because few people would click on one that says, “Chemotherapy associated with higher risk of death”. I agree with your observation, but I think it’s true of most headlines. “Southern NH to get up to 24” of snow” gets more clicks than “Expect 6-8” unless you live at the base of Mount Monadnock”. People are trained by our devices have an attention span of
Oh, look, a bird!1 -
All true. Now extrapolate these same dynamics to "hard news" and you'll appreciate that there is no such thing as an unbiased news story. CNN continues to post "orange man bad" articles all of the time, while Fox continues to post "the transvestites are all coming to get us" articles. G-d forbid someone should just report the facts without spinning things one way or the other.2
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Definitely a click-bait headline.0
