Weight Maven

I’d drafted my post on The Men Who Made Us Fat before I’d read Evelyn’s post. To look at the two posts, you might wonder if we watched the same video.

Evelyn and I have some things in common: our gender, our ages (I’m a little older), our struggles with eating disorders and weight. But her graduate degree and work experience is in science, mine is in communication and technology.

So I suppose it’s not that big of a surprise that we’d look at the MWMUF so differently. I agree that it’s important to get the science right and so the academic discussions are important. That said, I was a bit dismayed to see the MWMUF program dismissed in the comments on Evelyn’s as “another useless shit video that will help no one.”

I look at a study or a video and see what I like, someone else looks at a study and see all the flaws. To-MAY-to, to-MAH-to? Or maybe glass half full or half empty?

I suppose the tendency to do one or the other is in part due to capability, but perhaps there’s a bit of personality at play too. My own confirmation bias re the food industry certainly is involved … I like seeing them being called out the way they are in MWMUF.

After seeing the juxtaposition of our two posts today, I think we’re both right: the glass is half full AND the glass is half empty.

By all means, let’s get the science right. But maybe it’s just me, but I think we can and should make inferences based on what we currently understand and do the best we can to communicate that.

Especially if it makes some bastards squirm ;).