News headline today: "Experts: Sitting too much could be deadly." Sounds scary. As it turns out, the research says, those who sit those most tend to be the fattest. And those who are the fattest tend to have heart disease. And those who tend to have heart disease tend to die. Therefore, sitting makes you die. And I don't want to die!!

Screeeeeeech! Wait a second! If sitting makes you die, what about reclining!?!?! What about laying down?!?!?!?!? I like laying down!!!!

Maybe we should think a little more critically about this. I wonder if there's anything special about sitting that leads to heart disease? Maybe, but it's more likely that the problem is simply that sitting a lot really reduces the number of calories you burn during the day. It's this reduction that leads to heart disease, which leads to death. It's much simpler, then, to stop fear-mongering and say that heart disease, caused by eating too much (shocker!!!), can lead to an untimely death.

How about this for a headline: "Researcher extracts head from butt, remembers that correlation isn't causation, redacts misleading conclusion, suggests instead that eating proper amounts of food extends life."

I guess that would be a little too wordy.