Wed 7 Mar 2007
Criticizing a recent study that found the Atkins Diet fared better than a number of other diets, Dr. Dean Ornish, creator of the Ornish diet stated:
It’s a lot easier to follow a diet that tells you to eat bacon and brie than to eat predominantly fruits and vegetables
But isn’t that the point? I don’t care how super effective something is in a lab, it is useless if it is just too hard to follow, use or understand in real life. Think about it.
[read this post in: ar de es fr it ja ko pt ru zh-CN ]
March 7th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
Some people actually like eating fruits and vegetables rather than heavy, greasy foods. We’re not all computer geeks eating Cheetzos at our desks all day.
March 7th, 2007 at 9:35 pm
not eating at all will eventually result in losing more weight than either diet mentioned.
of course, it’s also amazingly unhealthy.
and that’s the important point, imho. the atkins diet is not healthy; it’s a shortcut to a quick result. perfect, perhaps, for the fast food generation (eat unhealthily and still lose weight ;), but not great for the body.
i think those recommending the atkins diet are amazingly negligent in doing so. then again, the diet industry has never been known for its ethics or consistency =/
March 8th, 2007 at 1:30 am
Bob,
The point isn’t about vegeterians vs. carnivors. Break the quote down into “in an ideal world B is better than A but A worked more because people actually stuck to it.” In Dean Ornish’s quote by trying to dismiss the Atkins diet he basicly validated the effectiveness of it.
Asigo,
Read the research. Basicly it says none of the diets are all that great and that prevention is a better method. However it did say
So don’t be so quick to dismiss Atkins. Of course my post really wasn’t about dieting to begin with so I won’t labor the point.
March 8th, 2007 at 3:51 am
Here you are trading short term complaciency against mid term personal grow. Mountain bike day 1 is for many urban humans “just too hard to follow, use or understand”. One month later they feel a an undescriptible happiness when they make their first challenging hill.
You find simpler examples picking the stairs instead of the lift to go to your 5th floor office.
The main question about diets is not about how to go through, but how you got there in the first place.
March 8th, 2007 at 4:27 am
I do not get the point. What is funny about that quote?
Car driving is also a lot easier if you ignore all the complex traffic signs. This is also quite unhealthy though.
March 8th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
Arne,
But are they complex? If most people pretty much follow them then I would contend that they are not overly complex because people do follow them. In fact where they have been shown to be confusing and overly complex there have been more accidents. Four way stops signs is an example of this. Traffic signs while not perfect have proven themselves to be a good design, in that people do follow them and they do measurably reduce traffic accidents.
Sure we could say there would be less accidents if people didn’t own cars but fewer accidents isn’t enough to persuade people to give up their cars. That would be a bad design for a plan to reduce road accidents. Sure in an ideal world it would work perfectly but then I don’t design for an ideal world. And that is why that quote is so funny to me.
March 8th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
qgil,
How many people mountain bike in the world consistently? Now compare that to say how many people just hop on their bikes for a fun ride to a friends house. Sure the mountain biking is very good for you (I didn’t say the Orin diet wasn’t). In fact measurly better than the casual biker on an individual basis, but if I am going to get more people to start biking I am going to design for the casual biker.
March 9th, 2007 at 4:18 am
So, what’s GNOME’s bacon?
March 19th, 2007 at 8:52 am
Ken,
That is the question of the day. Gnome is super uber cool, at least to the hackers I know. How do we get your every day users using it? What draws them in and keeps them using it? I know for my mother, she just picked up my laptop when I was visiting and was playing mahjongg. In OLPC I believe it is the music app TamTam, which will annoy the hell out of parents but keep kids entertained for hours while they still learn.
In fact games are a huge piece of the bacon for kids. Sure it may look like all they are doing is wasting time but if one crafts the game correctly one could create something that is both educational and keeps the kids interest at the same time. That is better than some boring application which may pack more direct information but a kid would never use.
P.S. Sorry for taking so long to respond but I have been away for a bit.