Talk:Healthline

Article about alkaline diet/acidic foods

Just wanted to notify you about an article I read on Healthline about acidic foods: (06/04/18)

After reading Wikipedia's article on Alkaline diet, I've come to understand that the information on Healthline is anti-science. From Wikipedia article: "The idea that these diets can materially affect blood pH for the purpose of treating a range of diseases is not supported by scientific research and makes incorrect assumptions about how alkaline diets function that are contrary to human physiology." 06/04/18

It is problematic that Healthline promotes disinformatative views on diet and nutrition and that should be addressed.

This is my only example as I haven't investigated further for more questionable articles.

37.191.218.242 (talk) 17:58, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

This is not a forum for general discussion of the topic. Jytdog (talk) 18:34, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

This is relevant to the article as it is relevant to the question of how reliable Healthline is, a topic which should very much be (and is) discussed in the article. It is not a form-post-type question.

I think the IP made a valid point. Fortunately, at least today they provide an "analysis" of the diet before going into details, which reads:

The Alkaline Diet is said to fight disease and cancer, but its claims aren’t backed by science. Although it may aid your health by restricting junk foods and promoting more plant foods, this has nothing to do with your body’s pH levels.

better than nothing. BernardoSulzbach (talk) 09:45, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

References

Criticism is too prominent and article sourcing needs vetting

Being new to Wikipedia, I'm staying away from making major edits, but I'd like to flag serious issues with this article. The way it is structured is unusual: the "History" section is below the "Accuracy" section, which would be better titled "Criticism." If a reader comes to the page for information about Healthline, they won't read much about the publication itself. Instead, most of the page is filled with the opinions of critics about individual Healthline articles, which (warranted or not) would be better suited lower down in the article.

There are also phrases like "there are questions about the quality and neutrality of their content" throughout, which should be sourced or attributed to critics. It needs a careful edit for editorializing or overly casual language, such as "Healthline Media CEO David Kopp claimed that his site had received, out of 40,000 comments, 'a few hundred' critiques" and "Healthline was losing money." Those are both sourced from the same AdExchanger.com story, so it's unclear to me why one is stated as a claim and the other as fact when both likely originated from Kopp.

I suggest the editors learn from how other articles about publications are written, such as the page for The New York Times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times. There is a lengthy "Controversies" section, but it begins with a description of the newspaper and a section about its history. If that can be done for a much more controversial publication, it should be easily done for Healthline.

Disclosure, since this page has had issues with conflicts of interest: I have no connection to Healthline nor with anyone who has worked there, but do have experience in the world of publishing and journalism, which could bias me towards a more charitable approach. But that's what a rigorous group edit is for, and this article has swung way too far in the other direction. Hungryforbook (talk) 22:23, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

@Hungryforbook thanks for your comments. I took a look at the article (previously I just reverted some vandalism) and agree it was in terrible shape. It's way out of date, other than funding and acquisitions which of course generate news hits. I reorganized a bit, changed accuracy to criticism, and tried to provide some WP:BALANCE.

The criticism was too prominent, and all comes from a single health news blogger two health news blogs (one blog generated two cites, but the Annenberg article just cites back to the blog). One is quite critical - I have no reason to doubt her opinion, but it's not enough to make a meal out of. Unfortunately a lot of the citations to Healthline are paywalled, or are just citations. I think it's fair to say that it gets a "somewhat reliable" from the health community but that's based on Google Scholar snippets and I'm not going to cite those.

And just to be complete, I have absolutely no WP:COI here. Oblivy (talk) 02:01, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

That is greatly improved, thank you. Hungryforbook (talk) 19:59, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Article references ranking from their own company.

In the lead section, a ranking provided by Medical News Today is referenced. Healthline owns Medical News Today, which is a clear conflict of interest. Why is the lead section even including a 'here's our good reviews' section, was this written by their PR team? Strangeworldeu (talk) 22:56, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

That sentence says that Medical News Today was lower-ranked in the same poll. Read in that context, Healthline is middle-ranked. The language could be written better; it's possible I wrote it when cleaning up the article (see above). Does this help allay your concerns? Oblivy (talk) 01:33, 27 August 2024 (UTC)