Conventional Wisdom Debunked

A friend of mine recently sent me a link to this lecture recently given by Gary Taubes at UTSA in San Antonio on Why We Get Fat. His research has confronted the conventional wisdom (as held by organizations like the NIH and the CDC) that obesity is fundamentally a problem of greater energy going into the system versus going on. In other words, calories in > calories out = fat. In the lecture (and I am sure described in more detail in his book), he chronicles a number of populations throughout history that went from prosperity to poverty (to include periods of famine in between), yet came out fatter in poverty compared to times of prosperity. The premise is that it’s the content of the calories that matter more than the count. The talk is quite interesting in its own right, so I encourage any of you who are into contrarian thinking about weight loss to watch it. It's about a 45 minute video.

However, the primary point of this post is not to provide our readers with weight loss advice! Rather, it simply made me think about just how much of the conventional wisdom in today’s health care system is really a bunch of bunk. As an example, a recent commentary in the BMJ debunked the conventional wisdom that to stay adequately hydrated, we should drink 8 glasses of water a day are also based on myth rather than science.

The question for us today is this, “What conventional wisdom currently exists in physical therapy that is a bunch of bunk?” I am hoping that readers will provide comments that challenge areas of conventional wisdom they think should be de-bunked. I will compile a list after allowing a couple of weeks for comments and then write a new post detailing the list. I will dedup items that are listed more than once, but other than that, I promise not to editorialize.

The moral of the story is that we have to be careful not to believe everything we’re told or even what we think. Doing so can be hazardous to your health and certainly hold back the evolution of a profession. Contrarian thinking, healthy skepticism, and vibrant debate that challenges conventional wisdom is necessary if we’re going to move forward.

Looking forward to your inputs. Fire away!

John