You’ve been eating healthy all week, but you could really go for a cheesy, greasy steak sub right about now. Forget about it, CBS’s “Early Show” warned its audience on the August 9 show.
“Researchers say that by eating one high-fat meal, it can actually start you on the way to clogged arteries and heart disease,” teased host Harry Smith at the beginning of the program’s second half-hour.
“In a new study, and if it’s correct, you should think twice about going on an occasional binge, because even one bad meal can hurt your body,” Smith warned as he introduced CBS Healthwatch correspondent Dr. Emily Senay.
Senay explained the results of the American College of Cardiology study and reminded Smith that “it takes time” for plaque to buildup on arterial walls and develop heart disease.
However, the University of Chicago alumna added, “you want to eat as many healthy meals as you can so that you don’t accumulate these types of problems.”
While Senay mentioned personal responsibility and didn’t jump to exaggerated conclusions, a review of online news articles on the study shows other media outlets are hooking in readers with alarmist headlines:
· A Bite of Burger Can Cause Heart Attack – All Headline News
· Even a bite of a burger can be harmful – Asian News International
· Just one fat-drenched meal one too many – Akron Beacon Journal
The media’s reporting on the junk food study is just the latest entrée in a steady diet of bias that BMI has documented in the media’s war on the food industry:
· In a July 19 article, Washington Post foodie Candy Sagon featured complaints from food industry critic Michael Pollan. Sagon left out that Pollan griped about how “Americans are as addicted to cheap food as we are to cheap oil.” Sagon went on to whine that “even organic [food] is becoming big business.”
· Sagon uncritically evaluated the anti-food industry Center for Science in the Public Interest’s (CSPI) battle against juice drinks in public schools.
· On July 4, CNN preached to its viewers about what to avoid in the grocery aisles. “The entire purpose of the supermarket is to get you to buy more, not less,” complained former CSPI advisor Marion Nestle, a food industry critic. CNN set up two shoppers with a trip to the supermarket with Nestle who critiqued their shopping habits, urging them to buy “natural” and not “heavily processed” foods.