As the audience and reach of my blog has grown, the number of juvenile, vitriolic and otherwise completely moronic comments has grown right along with it. I reached the end of my rope today when someone insulted my upcoming podcast guest, Kurt Harris, for no reason whatsoever and several other people attacked me personally for having the audacity to summarize research suggesting that excessive cardio is not effective for weight loss and may even be detrimental to our health.
With a full private practice, ongoing research, two blogs, live and online classes to teach, new projects in development, my own health and outside interests to consider, a wife that I love deeply and a baby on the way in four months I simply do not have time to referee useless and mean-spirited comments left by emotionally stunted miscreants who contribute nothing to the conversation here. In short, I’ve got better things to do.
I’ve been considering this since Kurt Harris decided to turn comments off at his blog (I remember being envious at the time). The main reason I haven’t is that I enjoy the sense of community and collaboration that has developed here, and I’ve been reluctant to give that up.
However, the good news is that I have a very active Facebook page where those who have a genuine question or are truly interested in contributing to the conversation can still do so.
I’m also working on an idea I’m very excited about that would offer opportunities for collaboration amongst people with a sincere interest in the subject matter I write about, and in improving their health and well-being to the greatest extent possible. I can’t say more about this yet, but stay tuned!
I’m approaching this as an experiment, which means I’m not ruling out brining comments back in the future. But it feels like the right decision to make at this point in time.