It’s not clear how anyone actually becomes a celebrity fitness guru. There are no classes to attend or tests to pass that we can find.
So any advice you hear from a celebrity fitness guru is best kept in the same category as a National Enquirer headline: Interesting, but Don’t Bet Your Life On It.
Case in point: “renowned fitness and nutrition expert” Harley Pasternak’s advice on eating fish.
Carolyn Butler’s article in The Washington Post, “Eating fish is wise, but it’s good to know where your seafood comes from,” takes good news about the health benefits of eating seafood and buries it under a cascade of frightening precautionary warnings.
November 19, 2012
Mr.Patrick Pexton
Ombudsman
Washington Post
Dear Mr. Pexton
Food reporter, Michele Henry, writes in today’s Toronto Star: “Choosing to put fish on your dinner plate might seem like a smart, healthy, even responsible choice. But surrounding these creatures is a roiling sea of controversy…”
No there’s not.
A few weeks back, NFI issued “A Call for Responsibility” to end journalists’ reckless and lazy practices of colluding with agenda-driven activists, distorting scientific truth, championing inferior research and causing irrational fear among consumers.
You may have read it.
“His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge.”
-- Sherlock Holmes, “A Study in Scarlett” (1887)
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes series, must have been turning in his grave Thursday night when the latest episode of “Elementary” aired on CBS.
The character of “Watson,” played by Lucy Liu, remarks: “I was thinking sushi tonight.”
Mainstream researchers, doctors and dietitians agree that fringe eco-gurus who promote mercury in seafood scare-stories are more and more exposed by ground truth science these days. When the extensive scientific review that went into the USDA’s Dietary Guidelines concludes that “the benefits of consuming seafood far outweigh the risks, even for pregnant women” the debate is pretty much over.
KNBC-TV in Los Angeles has an investigative reporting segment called Get Garcia, Get Results-- it's a catchy little local news moniker that I'm sure the promotions guys just love. But the problem is Garcia's producer didn't didnt tell the whole story. Read on:
October 30, 2012
Mr. Keith Esparros
Director of Content
KNBC-TV
VIA EMAIL
Dear Mr. Esparros,
A recent example of irresponsible and lazy journalism illustrates why science and health reporters need to be held to a higher standard.
It doesn’t surprise me anymore when people get information about seafood wrong and tuna in particular. But it does surprise me just how wrong they get it.
Let’s take for instance Andrew Freeman on TakePart, he’s an apparent expert on nutrition whose degree in history from UCLA and recent posts on prison overcrowding and a house in the UK made entirely of waste seem to back that credential up.
