New York Times Shocker: Sitting at a Computer All Day Leads to Being a Fatass

Well at least it isn’t the whole Facebook will eat your children theme.
I’m sure this New York Times article is getting a ton of play right now:

Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Fla., funeral services were held for Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology subjects who died at 60 of a heart attack. In December, another tech blogger, Marc Orchant, died at 50 of a massive coronary. A third, Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack in December. Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is as always-on as the Internet.

Ah yes: the anecdote = data school of journalism. No context.
Yes, I’m sure that it is surprising to the New York Times that sitting on your ass hunched over a computer screen and squinting at an LCD panel writing all day can possible cause stress, mental disorders and poor physical health. I actually catalogued a similar phenomenon called Bookfat a few years ago.  The story further extrapolates blogging as a job as only connected to journalism and news coverage:

Speed can be of the essence. If a blogger is beaten by a millisecond, someone else’s post on the subject will bring in the audience, the links and the bigger share of the ad revenue.

This is only true with news sites on timely topics. Many other bloggers are blogging about topics that are not so cut-throat. This is such a plain grab for blogosphere attention and of course it is working but adds absolutely nothing to anything.
If you want to burn yourself out it doesn’t matter what industry you are in – there is always someone willing to pay you more for burning yourself out faster than someone else.