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Retweeting – How “What The Health” Is Bulls**t

If you've read any of my books, you know I've tried dozens of diets over the last few years. I summed it up pretty well in my intro to Sink or Swing:

I tried so many things — crash diets, low carb, high carb, high-fat keto, 40-hour fasts — all followed by gargantuan feasts of bread, cookies and ice cream. I worked out with barbells, kettlebells, wore out the belt on our home treadmill with all the walking I did, went through successful highs and severe depression, and the gamut of emotions in between.

In a nutshell, I've tried a lot of things so I feel I have a good idea of what works and what doesn't. Lately, I've had a few discussions with co-workers about the documentary, What the Health, which seems like the 2017 version of the China Study. Until Denise Minger weighs in, Pete Lewkowski, CSCS, will have to suffice.

On his blog, Fitnesscrack'd, he writes a convincing point-by-point rebuttal of the movie. His intro gives a pretty good summary:

I dissected and analyzed the documentary What The Health and the claims it makes, looking at the research to see whether it’s sound, or if it’s bullshit. If you don’t want to read any further, What The Health is mostly bullshit. But if you care at all about your health, I highly recommend reading this. 

The reason why it’s mostly bullshit is because of the number of times it commits

  • Intellectual dishonesty violations
    • “This is a failure to apply standards of rational evaluation that one is aware of, usually in a self-serving fashion.”
  • Logical fallacy violations
  • Liar liar pants on fire violations

For the complete story, check out Pete's blog.

Thanks to Jose Antonio Ph.D. and Layne Norton Ph.D. for the Twitter mentions of it.

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