Yes, and not just About exercise.
Several months ago, I mentioned in a Buff Blog post how annoyed I get by magazines with articles like “Get a body like this in 4 weeks!” along side Photoshopped images of 10%-body-fat, surgically-enhanced professional fitness competitors.
“Do they think we’re stupid or what?” I ranted asked.
I stopped buying the mags and subscribed instead to a few About.com topics that promised to deliver by email the latest info and news on stuff like women’s health, nutrition, allergies, and gardening.
It’s deja vu all over again.
Consider the cutting-edge content of articles such as this one in today’s email from About.com Nutrition:
Why You Need To Eat
Your body and your brain tells you when you are hungry, but do you know why you need to eat? The foods you eat provide energy for daily activities, structural building blocks and the vitamins and minerals help keep all of your biochemical processes working. Here is an introduction to why your body needs good nutrition.
I’m going out on limb, but I’ll bet everyone out of infancy, let alone people who are seeking out news about nutrition, knows that eating food is rather important. And being the weight-obsessed culture that we are, the 80-bazillion TV shows and articles about health have made even the most uninterested of us aware of the value of “good” nutrition.
Yet somebody at About.com felt the world needed an article based on the nutrition chapter of their 6th grade biology book (”Calcium is best known as the mineral that is stored in your bones” and vitamins are the body’s “little helpers.”).
The articles I’ve seen for other About.com topics are rarely any better (did you know that there are medications, called antihistamines, to treat the symptoms of allergies?! Somebody call CNN!).
Granted, About.com is not exactly The New York Times… but it is an NYT Company, and it brags about being a top distributor of expert information.
Is this non-news really the kind of content the general public wants? Is the bar really that low, or does the media just really not want to work that hard?
And while we’re on the subject of work, are these writers paid for this stuff? I sure hope so. Because I can think of TONS of great topics upon which I can effortlessly expound:
The Primary Function of Deoderant. Why Your Houseplant Needs Water. What To Put In Your Car’s Gas Tank…
Where do I send my resume? On second thought, I’d rather work here.
Technorati Tags: fitness, health, nutrition, non-news
Filed under Buff Blog, Dept. of Duh, Healthy |3 Responses to “Yes, and not just About exercise.”
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You know, I just read about a revolutionary idea - not eating fast food helps you lose weight. Want me to pass the article along?
It’s like a giant brain enema. Dear god!
Where have all the good writers gone?
At times, eating is one of those things that I tolerate as a necessity. The body needs fuel you know?
At other times I love good food and can revel in an epic meal.
My favorite was a University study done recently that showed people who had lost weight and who started to exercise kept the weight off longer…
Show me the Grant money!!!