fake study: men who stare at breasts live longer, healthier

Really? German study says "staring at breasts" increases men's health.

According to an old fake German study making the rounds again, the healthiest men are those who stare at a woman’s breasts for at least ten minutes a day. And myFox Boston fell for it, and even provided video:

Five-hundred men participated in the German study. Half were told to refrain from looking at breasts for five years, the other half were told to ogle them daily.

The study claimed that men who stared at breasts more often showed lower rates of heart problems, a lower resting heart rate and lower blood pressure.

The authors of the study recommend that men stare at breasts for 10 minutes a day.

Really? REALLY? There is some German study that gives men an “excuse” to ogle women (like they need one)?

The purported author of the study, gerontologist Dr. Karen Weatherby (yes, a woman to make the story more believable), supposedly argues that gawking at women’s breasts is a healthy practice, equivalent to an intense exercise regime.

She added, “Just 10 minutes of staring at the charms of a well-endowed female, is roughly equivalent to a 30-minute aerobics work-out.”

Seriously? Staring at a woman’s breasts for 10 minutes is the equivalent of a 30 minute workout???!!! This simply cannot be true. How do I know? If staring at women’s breasts for 10 minutes was the equivalent of a 30-minute workout, bibliobloggers would be the most physically fit people on earth. And this is simply not the case. And I know – I’ve seen them all together in a room together.

I shake my head. In fact, I have a few questions that arise from a “scientific study” like this one:

• How does one muster enough nerve to propose a study like this?
• Who actually funded this study, the porn industry?
• Is the decreased heart rate due to the process of looking at the breasts, or some correlated physical activity that may immediately follow the ogling?
• Who volunteered to be in this study? (And how did they react when they were told they’d be in the control group?)
• How do women decrease their resting heart rate?

Seriously, I can hear it now: “Honey, I have to. Doctor’s orders.”

HT: RC

Update: This appears to be a recurring hoax, which MyFoxBoston fell for.