, by Julia Belluz, science journalist, sheds a disturbing light on diet books: useful or harmful? Paradoxically, explains Belluz, it is better to read diet books written by bloggers, medical students, actresses, singers, models, television nchormen or TV personalities in general, than diet books written by doctors. The reason?

According to Belluz, diet books written by doctors are far more insidious than those written by anyone other than a doctor, and for a variety of reasons. On the one hand, in fact, the reader falls into the logical fallacy of considering everything he reads to be true if a doctor has written it: it is called “appeal to authority” and it is a pertinent fallacy. Let me explain: the fact that it is a doctor who writes certain things does not mean that everything is automatically taken at face value. Otherwise it would not be explained how the theses of many doctors on diets and the concept of proper nutrition come into conflict so clearly: there are doctors who will explain to you that cereals are evil on Earth, others who will tell you that it is essential to eat very little protein if you want to stay healthy, having a diet rich in whole grains. The two things, alas, are mutually exclusive. Who to listen to

The book written by those who are not doctors is taken by the reader with greater skepticism : the reader may find the argument convincing, but he will always remember that the person who wrote the book is not a doctor , therefore he will unknowingly adopt a more critical and open.

Another reason why the diet books written by doctors are worse than those written by our neighbor who has lost 20 pounds and wants to spread his food gospel is that, according to Belluz, even doctors lie . Or rather: they simplify , to the point of creating new commonplaces. In order to get to write the book that offers a solution for everyone, even a doctor can draw the wrong conclusions, risking misinformation, or build an ad hoc thesis (I want to show you that insulin makes you fat: I will find all the articles that link insulin to overweight) without contradicting (the reader would then have to counterbalance the thesis read on the book, and find himself alone in the other studies that instead identify other causes in overweight: but who does it?).