An Op-Ed The LA Times Refused to Print

Here is an op-ed I submitted to the LA Times (LAT) re: an opinion piece it published about Jillian Michaels.

They declined to publish it.

That is their right and I have no point of contention with that.

I am posting it here because I believe it demonstrates how the MSM continues to misinform the public about matters of fitness, in this case weight loss, and how they fall flat in vetting their "experts."

I have changed the piece to include links to sources.

LAT Triple Threat – Innumeracy, Illiteracy and Irresponsibility

On October 11, LAT published a piece by James Fell re: Jillian Michaels’ kettle bell DVD. I have not seen the DVD, do not know if it suggests a nutrition plan and cannot argue with Fell’s contentions that Michaels is shameless and a danger.

My issues are with LAT.

Fell and, by implication from his website, his MD spouse, are anything but correct in the matter of weight loss. LAT should have figured this out before exposing its readers to their misinformation.

First. It is absolutely wrong to state that to lose 5 pounds per week, a “weekly deficit of 17,500 [C]alories” is necessary. (An uppercase “C” is correct since food energy is measured in kcal.)

This is proven by the physiologic parlor trick used in ketogenic diets where weight loss claims in excess of this amount are routine and met. (This is not an endorsement of ketogenic dieting for weight loss – an approach I generally consider improper.)

Second. It is a biologic, physiologic, physical and mathematical impossibility to lose one pound in one week by being in a daily caloric deficit of 500 Calories. The mistaken assumption underlying the Fells’ (and others) assertion is that a person can lose all the weight as fat. This is not possible as almost any basic physiology text will confirm.

Third. Had LAT simply checked the Fells’ website, it would have seen that they have a problem with numbers.

As an example, Fell and the Ms., MD, claim that “One pound of body muscle contains 2,500 Calories.” This is another impossibility.

There are 454 grams in a pound. Muscle is approximately 75% water. That leaves 25%, or 113.5 grams to contain calories. Even if muscle were all fat, at 9 kcal per gram, that would be only 1021.5 Calories.

I believe there are other problems with the LAT piece and the Fells’ website.

However, a greater issue is involved here – the repeated publicizing of weight loss misinformation by an uncritical media which, in the case of LAT, claims its “job is to tell readers what is true.”

For example, on May 02, 2005, LAT did a piece on “The 3-Hour Diet” by Jorge Cruise and David Katz, weight loss experts anointed by Oprah, a fat person and weight loss failure. LAT apparently did not consider it worthy to determine whether the authors’ claim that their diet was “Yale University endorsed” was true. Yale’s response to my inquiry indicated that it was not.

Fell’s piece was reported as a LAT op-ed. Even if the op-ed “mandate, as [LAT] see[s] it, is straightforward: to provide provocative, thoughtful commentary that is reasoned,” it does not necessarily follow that the job of telling the “readers what is true” has been eliminated. (Especially since this “might cast a shadow on the paper’s reputation.”)

It is clear to me that overweight/obesity are real problems that cause real suffering and incur real costs to real people. It is also clear to me that the misinformation dispersed by Big Media parroting the party lines of Big Sick Care, Big Government, Big Pharma, etc., serve more to injure the public than help.

IMHO, this LAT piece is yet another drop in an ocean of dross.

Readers interested in vetting my data are referred to:

1. Exercise Physiology, McArdle, Katch and Katch (editors)
2. www.JailForOprah.com
3. “Why diets fail – expert diet advice as a cause of diet failure.” American Psychologist, April 2007