Headline Leads Local Man to Blogging

I found an article on Yahoo! News about a study done on intelligence and vegetarianism with the following headline: “Kids with High IQ’s Grow up to be Vegetarians”. The headline bothered me immediately because it is such a blanket statement. So, all kids with high IQ’s become vegetarians? How about: “Kids with High IQ’s More Likely to be Vegetarians”? That would at least be less-misleading coming out of the gate.

Beyond the headline, though, the article itself has flaws. It assumes that the only cause of becoming a vegetarian is having a high IQ. It completely ignores any social factors that might have something to do with it. Perhaps it isn’t the IQ, but what the IQ provides, namely, income. If you have a high IQ you are more likely to go to college and get a good job. This gives you more money to spend on food. Being a vegetarian, and doing it right, is more expensive than eating meat, especially if you’re a vegan.

However, even if you don’t agree with my assessment above, the article itself goes on to say that there are many questions left unanswered by the study leading Lona Sandon, an assistant professor of clinical nutrition at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas to conclude that "we cannot draw any solid conclusions from this research.”

In that case, why is this even news? It wouldn’t be if it wasn’t for the headline. The study had to be spun so that it was seen as a direct link, otherwise all it says is, “some folks with high IQ’s are vegetarians.” Great.

Generally I think people understand to take headlines with a grain of salt, but this headline is just plain false. Editors are busy folks, but there should be more care taken when composing headlines.

Update

Today's Best of the Web had this to say regarding the article:

A new study shows that smart people are more likely to be vegetarians, reports HealthDay. But it turns out there's a catch:

"Children who scored higher on IQ tests at age 10 were more likely than those who got lower scores to report that they were vegetarian at the age of 30," Gale said.

The researchers found that 4.5 percent of participants were vegetarians. Of these, 2.5 percent were vegan, and 33.6 percent said they were vegetarian but also ate fish or chicken.

There was no difference in IQ score between strict vegetarians and those who said they were vegetarian but who said they ate fish or chicken, the researchers add.

Luckily for them, the definition of vegetarian wasn't on the test!