Kellogg's misleads consumers with a hokum health headline.

Have you seen the latest labeling lie?  Once again, it’s in the cereal aisle, this time touting the whopper that by eating a bowl of “snap, crackle, pop,” you’ll boost your immunity!  That’s right—who needs a multivitamin when you can arm your immune system with a tasty bowl of Rice Krispies?

Good grief!

Kellogg’s, the company that makes Rice Krispies, must think we’re real idiots.  Why else would they put a giant yellow label on their familiar blue box with the headline:  “Now helps support your child’s IMMUNITY”?

Kellogg’s has issued a rebuttal to their wildly misleading claim.  In a statement released to the press, Kellogg’s said that the added nutrients in boxes of Rice Krispies have been “identified by the Institute of Medicine and other studies as playing a role in the body’s immune system. Therefore, we believe the claim…is supported by reliable and competent scientific evidence.”

The nutrients of which they speak are vitamins A, C and E.  Since May, boxes of Kellogg’s Rice Krispies have a higher amount of these vitamins, going from 10 percent to 25 percent of your recommended daily amount per serving.

While it’s true, vitamins like C and E are antioxidants and are vital to a healthy immune system, but it takes a ginormous leap of faith to believe that a 15 percent increase of vitamins in cereal will improve immunity.  Heck, why don’t they have boxes saying “Now helps support your child’s EYESIGHT,” since vitamin A is good for eyesight?  Or how about “Now helps support your child’s SKIN,” since vitamin E is a great nutrient for healthy skin?

I’ll tell you why:  Because healthy skin and good eyesight is not in the news cycle.   What is?  How to maintain a healthy immune system.

With all the hoopla and hullabaloo around the swine flu, Kellogg’s is trying to capitalize on consumers’ fears by saying that their toasted rice cereal can protect kids’ immune system (capitalizing on swine flu fears is a charge that Kellogg’s flatly denies).  But if they were really concerned about a child’s immunity and health, why did they only increase the vitamin content of Rice Krispies to 15 percent?  Why not 50 percent?  Or 100 percent?  Because they know that their claims are bogus, that’s why.

If Kellogg’s was really concerned about kids’ health, they’d stop using high fructose corn syrup, and they wouldn’t be using so much sugar, the second most used ingredient in Rice Krispies (remember, food companies must list their ingredients in descending order, from most to least).

If you really want to boost your child’s immune function, forget the cereal.  Cereal can be a fine food, but let’s not kid ourselves into believing that it will buoy immune function.  Do it with breakfast foods that are naturally high in immune-defending nutrients, like freshly squeezed orange juice, natural grains like quinoa (which is one of the few grains that’s a complete protein) and vegetables like carrots (you probably don’t think of carrots as a breakfast food, but they’re a great addition to freshly baked bran muffins).

Wildly misleading claims like these are likely to change anytime soon.  Thus, when it comes to health claims, follow the rule that’s so often used it’s become a cliché:  If it sounds too good to be true, more often than not, it probably is.

Sources:
cbsnews.com
whfoods.com
msnbc.msn.com

Misleading headline suggests it's good to be overweight!

I’ve found in my writing of articles over the years that misleading headlines are becoming more and more commonplace. I wonder if I shouldn’t make it a weekly feature, something like, “The Latest Head‘lie’.”

It’s almost as if the goal of headline writers is to get people to read the article, not to accurately reflect the content of what the article is about.

Come to think of it, given the economic state of newspapers and the lack of readership, perhaps this isn’t such a bad idea (half-joking).

Seriously, though, it’s SO important to look beyond the headlines when you see or hear a story, particularly when it comes to health.

The latest example of headline beguiling says this:  “Study:  Chubby People Live Longest.”  This is what one of the most popular Web sites in the world, the Drudge Report, lists as the takeaway of the study, a Web site that garners 23 million page views in the average 24-hour period.

Talk about misleading the public!

I say that because the focus of the study was not on the fact that chubby people live longer, but that people who are severely underweight tend to have a shorter lifespan.

The headline suggests that it’s actually good to be overweight, but when you actually take time to read  the article, that’s not an accurate representation. You don’t have to take my word for it, though; take the words of one of the study’s lead researchers, Shinichi Kuriyama, from Tohuku University in Japan:  “It’s better that thin people try to gain normal weight, but we doubt it’s good for people of normal physique to put on more fat.”

That statement alone illustrates how misleading the headline is.  It’s not that chubby people live longer; it’s that people who are malnourished need to try and gain a normal weight.

Does this finding really come as a surprise, though?  After all, when someone is underweight (below 18.5 on the body mass index), their immune system is compromised, and the body’s organs aren’t given the proper amount of protection that quality muscle and fat stores provide as insulation.

Further, even though I’m not a proponent of chemotherapy because of all the side effects that come along with it, it’s well-known that chemotherapy adversely affects people who are underweight more than it affects people of normal weight or those who are overweight (for the same reasons as listed above).

What the headline ought to have read is something to the effect of “Underweight Have Shorter Lifespan.”  But because this isn’t much of a surprise and it isn’t “attention-getting,” headline writers fudge the truth and fill headline space with words that entice, don’t accurately inform.

But who knows?  Perhaps the misinforming of these articles will inspire people to actually read the article – the whole article – who can then determine for themselves that the story doesn’t accurately reflect its title.  But given the average person’s attention span – which is seconds, not minutes – I’m not too optimistic people will read much beyond the headline or the opening paragraph, both of which are misleading (You have to get to the ninth paragraph of an 11-paragraph story before reading the doctor’s proviso on weight gain quoted above).

Source:
breitbart.com