The Latest and Greatest Syndrome

So in my relatively short time on MFP, I've noticed something a little unnerving. If you look at this forum, the topics that generate the most conflict and controversy are those where the posters can't understand the one simple concept that truly is universal to fitness and weight loss. That being: There is no one single right way to do this.

Most recently this was exhibited in the thread titled "Stop eating breakfast. Here's why". I was actively browsing the forum when that topic was first posted and I've elected to not get involved in that discussion. From just reading the title, I could already see the major battle brewing. It's so simple to see, since rather than posing the topic from a perspective of "here's some information I found that was interesting" or "what do you guys think of this idea I found documented" or even "I've tried this approach and it worked well for me" the author of the thread, right from the title and indeed throughout his post insisted that this was some new discovery that debunks the former "wisdom" of other researchers who've stated the importance of breakfast.

Now I don't want to start rehashing that topic here, so if you're thinking about arguing the importance of breakfast, go to that thread and do it. I'm merely using this as the most recent example of something I've seen a lot of on this board and that's people's inherent desire to believe that they've uncovered some new secret that no one knew before. Why is this? Indeed when you read articles on weight loss and fitness programs, many are written this way. They all bad-mouth commonly accepted practice and pound their chests about how they've got the real answer to our problems. Well I can understand this, it's simply marketing spin. But why do we continue to buy into this crap?

I can tell you that whenever I read an article that focuses on bad-mouthing other approaches and focuses on the "revolutionary" ideas they're proposing, those are the articles i give the least amount of credibility to. I'm not dispatching them as not true, however the bias in their approach is clear and makes it hard to determine what is truly factual. So people seem to read these, find one that appeals to their sense of logic or whatever and then try them out. When it works for them suddenly they seem to feel that this was the long hidden answer and rather than just being what it was, the answer for them, they assume it is the only true answer for everyone.

Fact is folks, any number of plans, approaches and guides will work. There is no one right answer. Indeed each and every one comes with it's positive and negative trade-offs. We each have to find the one that fits our life style, makes sense to us such that we can believe in it, and ultimately that we're ready to commit to in the long haul. This doesn't mean that it will work for anyone else, let alone everyone else. So perhaps from now on we should all try to remember that while it's great to share information on these different plans and ideas, pushing them as the end-all be-all of dietary or fitness expertise serves only to make us look the fool.