Talk:South Beach Diet

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Latest edit-warring[edit]

Rv. to good; note deceptive edit summary; user warned (again). (TW))

Nothing "good" about it; it's a completely inaccurate summation of the source. Whether that is laziness, incompetence, or mendacity I'll leave an exercise for the reader, but a brief glance at the cite shows that it explicitly, and rather prominently, mentions that the source used does not address long-term cardiovascular effects for SB -no data were reported on its effects on cardiovascular risk factor levels. This cite does not support the claim made, at all, and refutes it explicitly about the different diet programs in general.

As I mentioned elsewhere, there's nothing deceptive about the summary; it appears to be a fixed setting for Twinkle when reverting vandalism. Anmccaff (talk) 08:30, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

So: the diet is promoted with claims it can improve cardiovascular health, but these claims have not been borne out by evidence. Alexbrn (talk) 08:33, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No. So the particular cite does not address it. Full stop.
This cite about another diet does, for instance, and suggests that low-carbohydrate unrestricted diet -i.e. Atkins, roughly- is easier to stick with than calorie-restricted low fat, (well, duh), successful in weight loss, but cardiovascular indicators are mixed - some better, some worse, without enough pluses to outweigh the minuses, unless (missing) long term date shows otherwise. (I'd suggest that the Nurses Study has provided the long term data, but that's another kettle of fish. We'll hit it in the next paragraph.) See, that would be an honest cite, were it focused on SB.
Looking at studies that do focus on low(er) carbohydrate diets see this, which summarizes Research shows that a moderately low-carbohydrate diet can help the heart, as long as protein and fat selections come from healthy sources. Drilling down into some of the studies sourced, we see A higher glycemic load was strongly associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease i.e., validating some of Agatston's ideas, which earlier commentary -still kept in the article, against the usuall MEDRS timelines- had rightly questioned in the past. Anmccaff (talk) 09:13, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Right, so you want to contradict the source based on other Wikipedia articles and your own amateur interpretation of the primary research it considered. Our MEDRS source is "designed to examine the evidence currently available from the literature to examine the efficacy of 4 commercial, popular diets on weight loss and improving cardiovascular risk factors". It reported no evidence in support of the claims made for the SBD. Maybe read the linked lay summary to aid your comprehension? Alexbrn (talk) 09:42, 4 January 2017 (UTC); amended 10:39, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I have mentioned nothing here about other wikipedia articles. If you want to make a straw man, at least dress it up a little better.
There is no interpretation involved, at least not on my part. The study cited explicitly and prominently mentions that it doesn't cover the use you and Jydog wish to make of it.
The lay summary, the abstract, and the study itself all make no mention of the claim you assert. None.
The study's conclusion, in fact seems pointed in an entirely different direction, focused on ROI, really. It emphasizes that a good deal of money gets spent on dieting, and perhaps people should have a little more to show for it. Anmccaff (talk) 10:16, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
quote: "designed to examine the evidence currently available from the literature to examine the efficacy of 4 commercial, popular diets on weight loss and improving cardiovascular risk factors" [my bold]. Alexbrn (talk) 10:39, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
And that supports a particular conclusion about the actual output how, exactly? We have the study itself, an abstract, a lay summary, and an editorial; none of them support the use you a Jytdog have made of it, and what..three out of four?..emphasize the point I made above. The cite does not say that these diets fail, but claims they are little different from each other in final result, and, you'd think with all the money and hype, things would be a little different from that. Anmccaff (talk) 19:31, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Tag[edit]

user:Ibadibam please state what you are disputing in this article.Jytdog (talk) 01:14, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The tag is alerting the reader to the above section. It should stay until the dispute is resolved. Bradv 01:18, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
There is no valid content dispute. There is one user with a history of disruptive behavior at this article who is about to be be topic banned. That's it. Jytdog (talk) 01:29, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • The onus is clearly on the person seeking to include the tag, to justify its inclusion. Right now, it comes across as WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Guy (Help!) 01:44, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't know whether the dispute has any merit. But the dispute clearly exists, appears to pertain to the reliability of a source, and is so intense that it has escalated to ANI. So I tagged it. Once the dispute is resolved, we can remove the tag. Ibadibam (talk) 01:51, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps you have not been around Wikipedia's fringe articles very much. Believers in bullshit consistently - and loudly - dispute the reality based consensus on their beliefs. They come to Wikipedia to try to fix our "bias". We ignore them. We don't treat motivated reasoning as being equivalent to assessment of evidence. We don't tag our articles on Relativity just because a handful of cranks believe Einstein was wrong (or, conversely, that their preferred candidate should have precedence). No amount of complaint from creationists will justify a POV tag on evolutionary biology. Guy (Help!) 01:59, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Quite. It would be every POV-pushers' dream if they could get a badge-of-shame tag on an article just by making a fuss. There is no dispute here, there is a problematic editor (which is why it's at ANI). And nobody should be enabling bad behaviour. Alexbrn (talk) 05:51, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Great. Then if and when ANI determines that the editor who raised the dispute acted in bad faith, we can determine that the dispute is spurious and remove the maintenance tag. In the meantime, the tag is a marginal act of AGF that serves as an appropriate notice of discussion. Ibadibam (talk) 06:23, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Just to keep a little perspective, the last "fringe source" rejected here was the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. How's that for "fringe, eh? Anmccaff (talk) 07:16, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Improper synthesis can be based on good sources. Guy (Help!) 10:08, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
There is no dispute, and there is no meaningful discussion (about content). Adding the tag is disruptive. Alexbrn (talk) 06:30, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Just to keep a little perspective, the last "fringe source" rejected here was the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. How's that for "fringe, eh? That was a blog published by the school. The school is also a clinical, as opposed to research school. As prestigious a name as it has, it's not a MEDRS source. Donald Trump has an extremely prestigious name when it comes to luxury hotels, but we wouldn't accept his twitter account as a source for claims about consumer psychology. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 14:11, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No. As the url shows, it's a regular column called "ask the expert," an interview of a staff member seen as an expert by a house writer. It is, in fact, an ex-officio source from a "prestigious" institution.
Next, although you could make a case that the Chan School is primarily concerned with education for practice, not research, it is involved with a great deal of it, and I'd suggest it's ahead of Hopkins in this regard, the Nurses Study, in particular, is one of the very, very few collections of data about actual reported diet over time.
So, we have an overview by someone an expert institution considers one of its experts, giving an interpretation of research being subordinated to a misinterpretation of a secondary source by a jytdog, whatever that may be. Why do you feel that is superior? Anmccaff (talk) 19:16, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No. As the url shows, it's a regular column called "ask the expert," an interview of a staff member seen as an expert by a house writer. Which amounts to a blog. Next! MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 19:59, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hardly.
Here's its masthead:

Editorial Director: 

   Lilian Cheung, Lecturer of Nutrition and Director, Health Promotion and Communication

Nutrition Source Editorial Team: 

   Brett Otis
   Nancy Oliveira

Contributing Writers: 

   Sari Kalin
   Emily Phares
   Pat Skerrett
   Hank Dart

Editorial Committee: 

   Alberto Ascherio, Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology
   Hannia Campos, Associate Professor of Nutrition
   Wafaie Fawzi, Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology
   Gokhan Hotamisligil, J.S. Simmons Professor of Genetics and Metabolism
   Frank Hu, Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology
   David Hunter, Dean for Academic Affairs and Vincent L. Gregory Professor in Cancer Prevention
   Karen Peterson, Adjunct Associate Professor of Nutrition
   Guy Reed, Associate Professor of Immunology
   Eric Rimm, Director of the Program in Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition
   Frank Sacks, Professor of Cardiovascular Disease Prevention
   Stephanie Smith-Warner, Associate Professor of Nutritional Epidemiology
   Meir Stampfer, Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology
   Marianne Wessling-Resnick, Professor of Nutritional Biochemistry
   Walter Willett, Fredrick John Stare Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition

So, aside from usual method of publication, it stands to the school exactly as the Harvard Health Letter does to Harvard Med. Is that a "blog", too? Anmccaff (talk) 20:27, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As far as MEDRS is concerned; Yup. WP:MEDRS (I linked it because you really need to read it) is very different from WP:RS, for a very good reason. It doesn't matter if you've got quadruple PhD's in Getting Shit Done, Getting Shit Done Right, Never Screwing Up and Biology with triple MD's in Internal Medicine, Being A Badass Doc and Always Curing Your Goddamn Patients, if you can't demonstrate your claims in laboratory conditions, we don't cite you for medical claims. Both of those sources would be perfectly fine for (for example) establishing whether SB is a "fad diet" or if it is part of mainstream medicine, or if it is pseudomedicine or any of a thousand other tangential facts around it. But for the actual health effects it has on the human body, only MEDRS sources are acceptable. And if it's borderline MEDRS, it's not MEDRS. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 21:13, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
...and yet this article does cite HHL, for exactly that purpose. I suggest you remove it, then? Anmccaff (talk) 22:26, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Bullshit. It cites HHL for three passages. The first two are descriptions of the way the diet is marketed, and the last is to support the statement that "...some aspects of the diet correspond with dietary advice which is recognized as sensible..." The last one is the only one that even comes close to being a health claim, and even it doesn't make any specific claims, merely noting the similarities between health claims which are widely recognized and claims of the diet sellers. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 00:09, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No. Truthshit. First, HHL is a MEDRS reliable site, as is Nutritionsource. Experts, overseen by other experts, not individuals possibly playing off one set of skills to assert expertise in another area. You could argue that Nutritionsource sits just above the cut-off. Anmccaff (talk) 21:48, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Truthshit So we're in agreement that your argument is shit. Good, because it was. You claimed it was used to support health claims. It's not. Hence, bullshit.
First, HHL is a MEDRS reliable site, as is Nutritionsource. Have you ever actually read MEDRS? No, it's not. There's a chart of statements by medical organizations at WP:MEDORG and this sort of patient advice doesn't even show up on the chart. The writer literally grabs a random doctor from the University hospital and asks them some questions, then writes down the answer. There's no fact-checking, no editorial review, no peer review, no consensus building. Just whatever comes off the top of that doctor's head. You might be able to get away with using it to support an extremely uncontroversial health claim, but the second a pedant or someone with access to a better source shows up, it'd go right out the window. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 22:04, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Please actually read and follow WP:MEDRS. There are many reasons why we don't use medical school webpages as sources for content about health. But bottom line is that they are not MEDRS. If you want more background see various sections in the archives of WT:MEDRS like this. If you want to have med school websites added to MEDRS the place to propose that is MEDRS. And yes there have been plenty of primary sources based on the Nurses' Study and there are secondary MEDRS sources that integrate those primary sources. Jytdog (talk) 19:23, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No, Jytdog. The caveat against Mayo reflects real, specific concerns. Some of the site had oversight, some did not. In fact, if memory serves, you yourself added some "marketeers" SEO bait to one of the diet articles from there, describing it as "MEDRS." Anmccaff (talk) 21:48, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]


And the source doesn't even mention SBD anyway? Alexbrn (talk) 19:28, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It does. See this. Anmccaff (talk) 21:48, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
That's a different URL. It isn't useful for anything much, except maybe for yet more confirmation that is a fad diet. Alexbrn (talk) 03:38, 7 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Time for you to drop the stick, I think. Guy (Help!) 10:15, 7 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Same for other editors. Editors will submit to Larry Sanger. QuackGuru (talk) 22:51, 7 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Replacing accurately written sourced text with vague text[edit]

See "A wide variety of diets are available to promote weight loss and improve cardiovascular risk factors, such as lipid levels, blood pressure, and glycemia. Among them, 4 are particularly popular among North Americans. Millions of copies of Atkins, South Beach (SB), and Zone instructional books have been sold,1–3 and over a million Weight Watchers (WW) members attend its weekly group meetings globally.4"[1] Later on the source says "Despite their popularity and their substantial contribution to a billion-dollar industry, the efficacy of these diets in promoting sustained weight loss and improving cardiovascular risk factors remains unclear."[2]

Current text "The diet is promoted with claims it can improve cardiovascular health, but these claims have not been borne out by evidence."

More accurate text is "The diet is promoted as improving risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease, but the effectiveness for improving these risk factors is unclear." This edit replaces accurately written sourced text with vague text. QuackGuru (talk) 21:51, 7 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Fine. Jytdog (talk) 22:05, 7 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I will start a RfC if anyone else challenges Larry Sanger's rules. This dispute is over. Time for editors to move on. QuackGuru (talk) 22:07, 7 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Actually QG, I think we need to be careful about how we translate text in medical publications into lay language for Wikipedia. In EBM there is an assumption that things do not work unless there is evidence to the contrary so saying something is "unclear" will be read as meaning "there's no way this would be recommended in practice". However, a lay reader might well take it to mean "hmmm, it might or might not be useful". We see altmed POV-pushers all the time trying to leverage this disjunction in meaning. The point about SBD is that it is marketed with big claims but there is no evidence that backs those claims, as we know from the review. This is why I think the existing text is a better representation of the source than your proposal (as well as avoiding the using of "unclear" which could be a bit of WP:CLOP). However if you insist on your text (as, knowing you, I think you will) it would be good to add "... because of a lack of supporting evidence" to make it clearer what the situation is, as reported by the source. Alexbrn (talk) 06:46, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The previous text was inaccurate. I provided verification for the change. Please provide V for "... because of a lack of supporting evidence" for your proposal. If you don't like "unclear" it can changed to "not clear" or possibly another synonym. QuackGuru (talk) 09:25, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It's an accurate paraphrase of the article, wouldn't you say? We paraphrase text, not cleave tightly to words, and you are consistently over-literate in your proposals for edits. Alexbrn (talk) 16:00, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I requested verification. See "Please provide V for "... because of a lack of supporting evidence" for your proposal." Your proposal is considered original research until you provide verification. QuackGuru (talk) 16:48, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
What a peculiar comment. You've read the article surely? It says: "South Beach was only assessed in 1 long-term trial, which found no difference in weight loss versus usual care, and no data were reported on its effects on cardiovascular risk factor levels." This is (obviously) why it's unclear: there is no pertinent evidence. Alexbrn (talk) 16:56, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I added ...because no evidence on its effects is available. ..."because of a lack of supporting evidence." is misleading. It was not because of a lack of evidence. It was because there was no evidence. There is a big difference. QuackGuru (talk) 17:29, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
There is generally no other kind of evidence in medicine except supporting evidence, but lay readers commonly do not understand this (thinking things can be "disproved") so putting "supporting" in is another instance of how we need to translate EBM-speak into lay terms. Alexbrn (talk) 18:05, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
That's not what the source verifies. QuackGuru (talk) 18:07, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It is if you understand the source. As has been discussed at WT:MED before, sometimes a correct presentation of a review saying "no evidence for X" is to say "X does not work". You are being over-literal without taking context into account, and it is a systemic problem with your editing. Alexbrn (talk) 18:09, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Even if sourced the text should not be misleading. "No evidence" is not the same as "does not work". I am following V policy with taking context into consideration, which is what others can aspire to achieve. QuackGuru (talk) 18:13, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Generally, all we ever have in medicine for ineffective treatments is no evidence, and generally that's all EBM-speak will say. What you're saying is that you'd never put X doesn't work in such cases. Wikipedia is not a scientific journal but a lay encyclopedia and you need to translate EBM-speak into lay language as not doing so can be misleading to our lay audience. See for example here on CST where Edzard Ernst "translates" this text: "the notion that CST is associated with more than non-specific effects is not based on evidence from rigorous randomised clinical trials“ into "CST is bogus". You really need to up your game in this respect as transposing EBM language verbatim into our articles can be NNPOV (another classic example is "more research is needed"). It doesn't really matter on this article but in some cases it's more important we are alert to this. Alexbrn (talk)
The previous wording was not fine and your comment is irrelevant to V policy. Vague or inaccurate text is misleading to our lay audience.
Previous text: "The diet is promoted with claims it can improve cardiovascular health, but these claims have not been borne out by evidence."
Current text: "The diet is promoted as improving risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease, but the effectiveness for improving these risk factors is unclear because no evidence on its effects is available."
I upped my editing to an extremely high NPOV level. The text is so accurate no editor can make an argument against it. We don't put our personal opinion in mainspace or argue against accurately written text. Anyone else? QuackGuru (talk) 19:40, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
In this case it doesn't matter, except for verbosity. But accuracy requires more nuance than using the same wording. You might check out the discussion here. Alexbrn (talk) 20:44, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I used and added similar wording that is accurate as well as sourced. The same cannot be said for this. QuackGuru (talk) 22:33, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly unsupported weasel word[edit]

Some concerns about the South Beach Diet and other low carbohydrate diets include the lack of dietary fiber, which is generally considered to aid in weight loss.[11] The part "Some concerns" may be unsourced. QuackGuru (talk) 09:50, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It either is or it isn't. Do you think "concerns" are expressed in the text or not? Remember not to look for micro-wording to support this, but understand the meaning of the article. Alexbrn (talk) 16:02, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think "concerns" is supported by the source. See rewrite: "South Beach Diet and other low carbohydrate diets include a lack of dietary fiber, which is generally considered to aid in weight loss and is valuable tool in preventing obesity." This is closer to source. QuackGuru (talk) 17:09, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Current wording "South Beach Diet and other low carbohydrate diets lack dietary fiber, which is generally considered to aid weight loss and to help prevent obesity.[11]" This also works. QuackGuru (talk) 17:33, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
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