The Hacker News Sacred Cow: The Unhealthy Lifestyle of The Average Geek | Hacker News Reader

The Hacker News Sacred Cow: The Unhealthy Lifestyle of The Average Geek

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My response to yesterday's down votes, in a thread about health and eating. Food for thought (about food), if you like.

Just to pick on a tiny part of that post, consuming anti-oxidants hasn't been reliably shown to have any health benefits.

If consuming anti-oxidants has any effect, it's not necessarily a positive one, since the body uses oxidation for various processes, for example the immune system.

You might be consuming anti-oxidants aiming to benefit your health, yet be negatively impacting your immune system's ability to fight infection and prevent cancer.

Anti-oxidant supplements are now generally believed to provide no real benefit, and might even have detrimental effects. See http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=709255 This research is about _supplements_, though. It doesn't say that it's a bad idea to consume vegetables and fruits where the anti-oxidants occur naturally, which is what OP was referring to.

That said, the real gain of eating vegetables is probably not that they happen to contain anti-oxidants. Rather, they contain any number of things that are good to us which are hard to quantify individually but has been observed to do us good as a whole. To attribute the positive health effects of something as complex as an apple to a single class of components - such as anti-oxidants - is most likely cargo-cult science in its purest form.

I hope you're being ironic, because this attitude is exactly what the article is declaiming.

Nope, not ironic.

But if your aim is to increase people's health, you're going to do a better job using accurate information.

The initial studies showing anti-oxidants have health benefits have struggled to be replicated, and new studies have shown anti-oxidants may be having negative health impact.

Edit: since a couple of people have asked, here's one fairly good source, there are others if you search. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22419320

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I can recommend Ben Goldacre's "Bad Science" - I read this in book form, any time I see "anti-oxidant" in the context of nutrition I also start to engage full skepticism mode.

Here is an article from Bad Science pointing to a Cochrane Collaboration review of the effectiveness of anti-oxidants:

http://www.badscience.net/2008/04/cliff-richard-gloria-hunni...

Michael Shermer, the author of Why People Believe Weird Things, also had an interesting direct experience with nutritional pseudo-science:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_People_Believe_Weird_Things

I see this as the perfect example why the article is mostly wrong. It supposes a personal motivation for "ignoring" allegedly good advice, whereas I'd bet that a lot more readers are looking at things from a objective, scientific angle where just anecdotes don't really count ("every person I tried this on" ain't that much better than "it works for me!").

Probably some variation/inversion of Hanlon's Razor.

Not everyone who wants to see more evidence for every claim and trick is doing that out of sheer denial. There might be some room for the Nirvana fallacy here ("SuperMegaFoodStuff didn't make me into an Adonis in a week, so it's crap"), but in general I'm pro-skepticism.

I'd suggest you to review the current science literature on this subject as it so far it's starting to look bad for proponents of the "You need more vitamins"-campaign.

Antioxidants Could Spur Tumors by Acting on Cancer Gene http://www.sciencemag.org/content/343/6170/477.summary

Supplement Alert: Antioxidants May Protect Cancer Cells Instead Of Protecting Us From Them http://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2014/02/08/suppleme...

Why would he be ironic? Consuming too many antioxidants have been tested and turn out to have some pretty ugly negative effects, just like too much of anything else at all.

Care to show us such a test or study?

http://www.badscience.net/2008/04/cliff-richard-gloria-hunni...

That links to a 2008 Cochrane review.

Here's the updated review: http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD007176/antioxidant-supplemen...

Isn't the study (not the blog, because...honestly, who cares about a blog reference) about supplements, though?

My smoothie is made from whole foods, only.

Supplements are a very complicated thing. I can't even venture to say whether they're good or not, based on all the conflicting information.

A link to the post in question https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7763106

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say the downvotes are more for the claims of a miracle cure-all smoothie than for some sort of perceived self-promotion.

I guess I'm not allowed to participate in the discussion, I've had to delete several comments already that were getting steadily down-voted.

It's not a claim to be a miracle or cure-all. This is exactly the type of cynical, know-it-all bullshit that frustrates me so much. It's nothing else but a claim, based on years of my own personal experience, to the benefits I myself have experienced, and the benefits others have experienced. And they've been more than happy to share with me.

I brace myself now for more down votes, since here I reply in a reasonable and conversation-furthering manner. =/

Its about anecdotal vs empirical evidence. And lets face it, all these miracle foods are being promoted (in the general health food market) as some saving grace to health. And they are doing it claiming to be, basically, a magic pill. Just put a dash of this, or a spoon of that, into your smoothie or onto some toast or into your oatmeal and BAM! Now you're healthy!

You might be feeling great, but have you done a scientific study to know if its just a placebo effect? My guess is that its not a placebo effect, but not because it has "super foods" in it. But because it has "FOOD" in it. As in, good whole and natural foods. I'm not a vegetarian, or anything close to that. But as a society, we need to eat healthier. This, is something that we should be touting. Eat fruits and vegetables - the more color the better. Eat less highly enriched starches and other highly processed foods. You don't have to stop eating everything that's unhealthy, you have to enjoy life. But if we all ate our recommended servings of fruit and veg we'd be reversing lots of obesity just because we were being intentional about our nutrition. And that is what it boils down to.

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Please don't bait other users by inviting them to downmod you.

>>It's not a claim to be a miracle or cure-all.

Read what you wrote:

>>>>If you add this smoothie to your daily life, and change nothing else, you will feel better. A lot better.

How?

>>>>you will feel better and experience benefits.

What kind of benefits?

Yeah, I think it's more the tone of the article that bothers people. It's strong with the 'I found Jesus, have you heard about Jesus, let me tell you about Jesus.'

What I find difficult about that is that I absolutely support someone who is excited about their epiphanies (especially when I think they're good ones!), but it can be really hard to not feel judged or to get annoyed or even downright angry.

Saddest part about that post was the implication that HN disavows self promotion.

Dude. HN is a hacker site. We build stuff -- build it, sell it, share it, talk about it. I've never threatened to leave HN but if I did, it would be if they had some policy banning self-promotion. This isn't some cute club of teenagers where you have to get a friend to submit a link and then the cool kids all have to like it. There are people, lots of people, who are supporting their families on the things they do and share here. Please. Self-promote. We'll downvote you if you get obnoxious, but that's about it.

I think the real problem was hinted at in the article: that sort of ranting I've-figured-it-all-out-you-bunch-of-fools attitude. Over the years, I've found the board very unfriendly to people who come in with a flame thrower laying waste to those they're trying to engage. Yes, you can certainly talk about how unhealthy we all are, been done a million times, but not so much on the miracle cures and how we're a bunch of ingrates who won't listen to reason. That's a good way to get a virtual punch in the nose.

TL;DR: guy gets a comment downvoted on HN and responds by accusing the downvoters of having an unhealthy lifestyle.

Is there any evidence that the average geek is less healthy than the average person?

Here's a link to the comment in question: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7763106

Thanks for linking to the comment in question. It starts with "I've been helping my family and friends with this recipe [... and I'm going to help you too.]" This kind of behaviour is not dissimilar from religious groups that try to force their unproven believes upon other people. Even anecdotal evidence is provided. I'm pretty sure if he'd have written "I enjoy this kind of smoothie, and it makes me feel better." he would not have been downvoted.

Of course geeks have unhealthy lifestyles, a lot of us don't go outside and eat a lot of junk food. Sitting in the dark in front of a computer is not an activity that promotes health. This article is worthless anyway though because the guy got downvoted for posting a video of himself, not for being unhealthy, and also the guy's solution is an "antioxidant smoothie" which is pure unadulterated nonsense.

Logic says that someone who spends more time in front of a computer is less healthy than someone who spends less time in front of a computer. I think it's solid enough logic that the onus is on you to provide evidence to the contrary. But hell, geeks should be able to find actual evidence; that's what geeks do.

person A uses a computer for 6 hours a day, person B uses a computer for 30 minutes a day, ergo person B is healthier.

This logic doesn't seem to be very "logical"

everything else being more or less equal , the person with the lifestyle of 6 hours a day will probably be less healthy than the person on 30 minutes a day

Instead of seeking that "evidence," consider this: is the average geek not supposed to be smarter than the average person? (Is this generality more acceptable because it's flattering? For that matter, is there any evidence of this, either? But for now, let's assume it's true.)

So on that assumption, which we grant temporarily, why then should we not expect these smarter people to make smarter lifestyle choices? Should we not expect geeks, in other words, to do better, not just the same as?

Or at the very least, to be armed with the correct information so that, when the time comes to make those choices, he at least recognizes when he is choosing poorly? Of course the real question is: how do we get people (smart people included) to choose wisely? This is the sixty-four thousand dollar questions.

Claiming some kind of magic smoothie will improve your health is the type of health-nonsense we need less of, not more, it doesn't serve any purpose improving anyone's lifestyle. That's probably why you got downvoted into oblivion, not because 'average geeks' don't care about their health.

Mind you: I'm not saying your smoothie is not healthy, or that it doesn't matter what you eat or how you live. Just that blanket statements such as 'my smoothie has improved the life of everyone I introduced it to' is about as scientific as astrology or tarot cards, and IMO has no place on a site like this.

My point was that your premise is based on something that we don't know. Perhaps the average geek is smarter than the average person (for some definition of smarter), but perhaps they're also healthier. We just don't know.

While I believe that you were genuinely trying to be helpful to the community by offering an easy way to be healthier, we are generally a suspicious bunch and when there are a number of claims made based on unsupported hypotheses, there's going to be complaints.

It's one thing to say: "I do this and it seemed to do good things for me". It's another to say "I do this and so should you".

I think you are both right and wrong. I think geeks have a heard time hearing that they are wrong but I don't think that is why you were downvoted. Your comment looks extremely spammy. Firstly, it reads like one of those "This housewife lost gazillions pounds with this one secret trick. Click to find out more". Secondly, there are a lot of "do this one miracle thing and you will feel better/get thinner/whatever" miracle cures and most of them are bullshit. You claim your recipe is changing lives but what data do you have to back that claim other than a poorly conducted study (friends testimonies) on an extremely small sample size? Maybe we don't think you are a liar, but everyone pretending to be an expert and/or promoting some miracle cure has gotten really, really old.

I don't have much to add, but I wanted to register my support for the author as a counterpoint to the wave of hate he is sure to receive here for posting such a squishy complaint that's not backed by "evidence". I believe truly that he's right that a lot of geeks are in denial about their health and effects of there lifestyle. Of course this is probably true of most people in modern industrialized society, but the thing that's pernicious about geeks in this case is their power of rationalization is so well-honed. Plausible deniability is pretty easy with something as complex as health, but so is it with climate change as well. It's interesting to see how the personal factors affect the relative reaction to both of these subject matters by the general HN population.

It's nice to advocate healthy living but I really think you're looking too much into the reason why people may not have found your video particularly interesting. Though you raise a discussion on a topic that may be worth exploring, all you've done is stereotype an entire community - which you yourself are an active participant.

Keep in mind, this is a tech community - people that want better living & health advice will seek it out.

Isolated quotation:

"We see our pasty, doughy, sickly selves in the mirror and somehow just deny the obviousness of the truth. We then armor ourselves against anything that might pierce our bubble of denial, so as to protect our inflated egos. I say "we" and "our" because I'm not so different, either. It's just that, for various reasons, years ago I saw the light re: health and fitness"

Isolated even further: "I'm not so different, either."

"I'm not so different .. It's just that .."

You include yourself and then exclude yourself in the very next sentence.

I know you're excited and eager to share what you feel has empowered & enlightened you but you shouldn't take it to heart when not everyone else is on the same wavelength.

This is a video where I show how to use real food--fruits, vegetables, flax seeds, etc

One thing I do not understand is why would one take perfectly fine real food, such as fruits and vegetables, and then artificially blend them ... if the goal is healthier diet, please eat real food!

I'm not going to try the smoothie, but I guess that for me it would be a step down from a healthier diet to a less healthy one.

Why do you think that blending food magically makes it "less healthy" and then it suddenly ceases to be "real food"? Come on, now!

Oh, we're going to play this game of "I post something, people critique it, I respond by being butthurt and missing the point of the downvotes because I couldn't hear a differing opinion" ? Because that's how it looks.

This just in, if you tell someone to eat/drink/consume a specific thing in their daily diet, they start to monitor their intake more closely. gasp. You also claimed it as fact, yet couldn't receive skepticism without needing to call attention to it (re g+ post).

I could throw the same argument back,

> The Hacker News Sacred Cow: The Unhealthy Ego Obsession of the Average Geek

From my extremely anacdotal experience I've found a number of people in the tech industry to be unknowningly living dangerous sedentary lives. It's easy to not realise how unfit you are when you're young, especially when your body bounces back relatively quickly and can adjust to change and stress appropriately.

Things start to look grim down the road though. The future is not kind to unprepared bodies.

I think younger people in general have difficulty imagining their body might someday not perform exactly like it does today. It's understandable, because how do you imagine an older body? It's not their world (just yet). This is also why most of the startups focus on things younger people like them would like. I hope Apple's assumed focus on Health Apps will change this by the way).

For starters your original post should have been down voted because you originally went on about being down voted.

This site specifically asks you not to do this.

If you can't honour the sites basic rules, perhaps it's not your crowd anyway.

It's ok to make a mistake but to be up in arms about it shows this is more than that.

My wife has a PhD in nutrition and is also a dietitian, so I know a lot more than average about food and healthy eating.

It's gotten where I don't even click on the comments of any nutrition-related story I see on HN, because the volume of misinformation makes me sad.

This post was killed by user flags.

I would say I'm not very healthy myself. I drink a lot, eat lots of sugar, meat and fat. I have thought about eating more healthy and have tried for a little while a couple of times. However I always fall back to eating unhealthy.

The reason for this is that I like eating unhealthy food. It tastes great and gives me joy. I don't mind not growing as old as I could when eating more healthy. This is because I wouldn't enjoy my life as much when I would.

one thing that has been working for me in my quest to at least slightly improve my health has been to try out fruits and vegetables and look for very simple 'recipes' that are delicious.

The reason is that I (and perhaps many other geeks) don't have much patience with 'physical' things. Eating is mostly an annoyance to me, I don't care about my looks that much, and I can often get so wrapped up in 'virtual' stuff that I forget how much I enjoy nature and the sun.

And at some point I figured rather than trying to 'cook properly' and give up, I should maybe start with simpler things. And that's been working pretty well.

Smoothies, for example, are quite easy to make. Or recently I developed an obsession with a very simple sandwich: bread, cheese, little bit of mayo, avocado, rucola and some salt and pepper. I wouldn't have thought it possible, but I love that stuff and eat it almost daily.

I'm nowhere close to having a proper, healthy lifestyle, but it's a start. And after three years of false starts it's quite a breakthrough!

Eating "healthy" doesn't necessarily mean your food has to be less tasty. In my bag for lunch today I have some leftover homemade vegetable lasagne, half a seabass, a nectarine, an apple, a banana and a handful of brazil nuts. I'd be very surprised if any of my teammates enjoyed their shitty sandwiches from the shop on the corner more than I enjoy what I have

The same thing happens to me. I am just starting to worry that "I don't mind not growing as old" is not the worse case scenario here, as you are implying. Apart from not growing as old, you may surprisingly fall into a situation where you can't do some activity even while young. I just screwed up my knee while jogging and it seems to take months to recover. The first day I couldn't really walk, and then the next 3 weeks (and counting) I cannot run. And I blame my sedentary life and plain lack of care during the previous decade for this. The consequences of living unhealthy are just often underestimated. It's not just about living to be older, it's also about what happens in your mid-life.

Nothing against the idea of healthy eating or smoothies for that matter but it just may be the claims made in your post that made it read like a testimonial you see on fitness sites or fad diets that may have triggered the ire of the folk reading it. It's nothing personal, and please don't take it that way and for the record I'm going to try this out( but that's because I like smoothies).

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