This is from my weekly email newsletter but I republish it here for sharing and referencing. If you're not already a subscriber you can join below:
There is a lot of information out there on health and fitness.
And except for this newsletter it's all trash ...
Just kidding, but seriously, how is a normal person supposed to evaluate what they're watching / hearing / reading without getting master's degrees in biochemistry and exercise physiology?
As a consumer of health and fitness content myself I've found it really tough to know what's good and what's not. Everyone can site studies and everyone can point to examples of their methods working in practice.
Health and fitness research scientists are of course aware of this problem and over the years I've heard some really interesting thoughts on the matter, one of which is the following.
We like to talk about hard science but the reality is that most scientific knowledge often starts out more soupy. Health and fitness knowledge, a type of scientific knowledge, also exists on this spectrum.
| Soupy | -------------------------> | Squishy |------------------------->| Hard |
After an idea has been thoroughly researched, replicated by independent studies, and proven its utility in the real world we generally feel comfortable calling it a fact. This is hard science.
FDA approved prescription drugs, for example, must demonstrate that they are backed by hard science. Part of this process includes running double blind, placebo controlled trials with humans participants etc.
In the realm of squishy science we are talking about ideas that seem to work on the basis of reason or because in practice they are useful. Most health and fitness information lives here.
Unlike hard science, we may have a small handful of studies or maybe only one. Maybe the existing studies have only used animal models but not humans. Alternatively, we may not have any published research but instead have a large amount of anecdotal evidence from hundreds or thousands of people.
Soupy science is where all science begins. We formulate a hypothesis because of something unusual we noticed once. Or possibly we noticed something too many times for it to be a coincidence. These ideas are almost always anecdotal and based on lived experience. Often, these are the experiences that lead to new research that later disproves existing hard science.
Given that all information about health and fitness falls somewhere along this continuum you could easily conclude that unless a given fact is based in hard science you shouldn't accept it.
But there's a real downside to this line of thinking.
Mainly that you give up the possibility of finding something that is useful but unproven. Sometimes, after undergoing the rigor of research and testing an idea turns out to be just totally untrue. Other times, however, the research just confirms what we've suspected to be true all along.
Sometimes, we find that something works but just not for the reasons we thought!
Ultimately, the best consumers of health and fitness information will be able to accurately evaluate where on the spectrum something lands and decide whether or not the fact can be useful to them. What are the costs / benefits of trying something now instead of waiting years or even decades for something to be proven out with hard science?
Something to consider 🙂
Have a great week!
Nick