Years ago, I had an ’89 Toyota hilux. At some stage, I started to see rust coming through the bottoms of the doors. A common problem from that era.
I went and got some quotes to fix it. For $200 cash, an autobody guy said he’d make the problem go away.
Seemed cheap… I asked what he was going to do. He sprays oil through the inside of the door, and then uses some bog on the outside to cover up the rust. Then he spot paints the door to match the car colour.
The oil slows down the rust, and from the outside, the whole thing looks great. Should get a couple of years from it. OK, I could see why it was cheap… But let’s give it a try.
This isn’t a fix. That’s why it’s cheap. In fact, it’s stacking a new problem on top of the old, it just looks like a fix.
If the solution to the problem you have in front of you is creating a new problem, even if the original problem “appears” to go away, it’s probably not a fix. In fact, it might be worse than worthless.
Whether it’s in health (especially in health,) fitness or marketing, the underlying mechanics, or science needs to show that your solution can solve the actual problem for it to be a fix.
If it doesn’t, the fact that you make it sound good in the moment is surface level hype, that lets us continue to ignore systemic issues.
