Study Finds Value in Email Spam

Posted by Zonk on Monday July 4, 2005 @11:40AM from the better-than-the-porky-kind-anyway dept.

Ant writes "According to a LiveScience story, a steady diet of email spam can be good for you. From the article: 'Researchers split a group of more than 2,100 Canadians into two groups. One group got e-mails that promoted healthy lifestyles, the other got none. "These were informative and motivational messages sent weekly for 12 weeks," explained study leader Ron Plotnikoff of the University of Alberta. The e-mails promoted the benefits of a good diet and physical activity. Those who were effectively spammed, as a group, saw their mean body mass index (BMI) go down, meaning it improved. BMI is a measure of body fat based on height and weight. Overall BMI rose for the control group, which did not get the emails.'"

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BMI doesn't measure body fat by taustin · 2005-07-04 18:44 · Score: 4, Informative

BMI is a ratio of height to weight. It is no, in any way, connected to body fat. That is what makes it pure, unadulterated bullshit. It does not take in to account age, build, or even sex. According to those who preach BMI, a man and a woman of the same height should be the same weight. According to BMI, if you are very muscular, but in such good shape you have 5% body fat, you are overweight.

That isn't just quackery, it's medically dangerous.