No, Eating a Hot Dog Doesn’t Take 36 Minutes Off Your Life
Drinking wine doesn’t extend your lifespan either.
Two days ago, I opened up Twitter to find out that this shoddy piece of science reporting from Inside Edition was trending:
As soon as I read this headline, the persuasion researcher and science writer in me went completely apoplectic. Inside Edition is not exactly famous for their high quality journalism, but their already dismal reputation doesn’t take away from the fact this article was promoted by outlets like CNN and ABC News as well, and promoted across the entire platform of Twitter, where individual tweets about the research had netted thousands of reactions. Most people who responded to the article (based on research out of the University of Michigan) seemed to be taking its message in earnest, trying to calculate how many hours of their lives they had shaved off by eating hot dogs, and speculating at the effects of other foods, such as Krispy Kreme donuts.
This article and the public reaction to it is a perfect encapsulation of what is wrong with science reporting (and honestly, scientific research itself) today. It’s a veritable Bingo card of biased hypothesis formation, inappropriate data analysis…
