The Chocolate diet fact or fiction?

Question

Eat chocolate, lose weight? Widely reported study was part of an elaborate plan to expose junk science and media hype. How does this new diet affect weightloss? How does this media coverage find their sourcing and evidence?

Answer 1

Eating chocolate does not help you lose weight. The article that is link in the original post reports on the chocolate diet trend and how that was a hoax to expose junk science and how it poorly reported on in the media. Science Journalist John Bohannon, who also used to work at Harvard as a biologist, was quoted talking about how journalists need to be better at reporting, and one way to do this was to "shock the system." The rest of the article describes how Bohannon and the rest of the team pulled off proving their chocolate diet "works" and why they did it. However, I did my own research and came upon this Harvard Gazette Article from 2021 (https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/06/starting-the-day-off-with-chocolate-may-have-unexpected-benefits/) 6 years after the CBS article. Although the Harvard Gazette article did find that eating chocolate helps burn body fat and lower blood sugar levels, the study was only concentrated on postmenopausal women. In addition, another source from the European Food Information Council (https://www.eufic.org/en/whats-in-food/article/is-dark-chocolate-good-for-weight-loss) discussed how the cases regarded chocolate lowering BMI don't show cause and effect, and the studies that are out there are limited and need to draw more conclusions.

Comments

This is a strong fact check, it cites multiple articles contradicting the claim, as well as explains how the original article misconstrued studies and evidence with regards to the chocolate diet. I do struggle to understand the section about journalist reporting standards, and how it is relevant to the claim being made, so some more explanation as to why that matters in this case could make your answer stronger.

Answer 2

After digging into the topic, I found that the idea of chocolate helping with weight loss is actually a myth. One of the biggest sources of this misconception came from the so-called "chocolate hoax," which was exposed by Science Magazine correspondent John Bohannon. In an interview with CBSN’s Vladimir Duthiers and Elaine Quijano, Bohannon explained that the story was based on a fake research study created by a non-existent research team. The confusion started because the original study was only testing the effects of bitter chocolate as a dietary supplement, not suggesting that chocolate in general could help with weight loss. So, despite the headlines, there’s no scientific evidence to support the claim that eating chocolate will help you shed pounds. It’s simply not true.

https://www.tamucc.edu/online/video/video-mXLPCfXXZJU.html#:~:text=Science%20Magazine%20correspondent%20John%20Bohannon%20discusses%20the%20%22chocolate%20hoax%22%20that,by%20a%20fake%20research%20team. 

Answer 3

With the claim of weather, “Eating chocolate every day can help you lose weight?” being a confirmed hoax, we can say this claim is false. This hoax was fabricated by journalist Johannes Bohannon. A quote from an article shows how he was able to garner the attention and credibility of the media: “The Bild story quotes the study’s lead author, Johannes Bohannon, Ph.D., research director of the Institute of Diet and Health: “The best part is you can buy chocolate everywhere. Undisclosed was that his Ph.D. was in molecular biology of bacteria, not humans. The Institute of Diet and Health was nothing more than a website. Besides those details, he had created an authentic study using real humans as subjects in Germany. Running an actual clinical trial, with subjects assigned different diets at random. The reported statistically significant benefits of chocolate were based on the actual data recorded. The results were that the treatment groups lost about 5 pounds throughout the study, while the control group’s average body weight fluctuated up and down around zero. The catch was that the people on the low-carb diet plus chocolate had lost weight 10 percent faster. This caused statistically significant differences and better cholesterol readings, and higher scores on the well-being survey. Since they were measuring a large number of things within a small group of people, it was almost guaranteed to get a “statistically significant” result. The study had 18 different measurements from 15 people. This was a study designed as a recipe for false positives. As explained by John, “We didn’t know exactly what would pan out—the headline could have been that chocolate improves sleep or lowers blood pressure—but we knew our chances of getting at least one “statistically significant” result were pretty good. The results at the end of the day were meaningless, and the unsupported health claims were spread by the media to millions across the world.

https://gizmodo.com/i-fooled-millions-into-thinking-chocolate-helps-weight-1707251800