Why Simplifying Complex Health Topics Can Lead to Misunderstanding

How long is the California coastline?
It depends on who you ask.

• The California Research Service says 840 miles.

• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says 3,427 miles.

The huge discrepancy isn’t a mistake—it’s the result of the measurement method.
If you measure the coastline with a one-mile ruler, you get a shorter distance. But if you measure with a 12-inch ruler, you capture far more detail—making the coastline appear significantly longer.

The lesson?
The level of detail changes the size of the constant.
And the same is true when interpreting complex ideas, concepts, and information.

A complex idea becomes less accurate the more it is simplified.

How This Applies to Your Health

Medicine, health, and fitness are inherently complex. Healthcare and fitness professionals spend years studying the human body, biomechanics, physiology, pain science, and pathology. But when explaining these concepts to patients or clients, practitioners often simplify things to make them understandable.

There’s nothing wrong with simplification—as long as we’re aware that accuracy has been reduced in the process.

This creates a critical question:

What details are we comfortable sacrificing in order to make complex topics understandable?

When Oversimplification Becomes Harmful

Example: Back Pain

If a physical therapist tells a patient that their back pain is due to their “disc being out of place,” is that harmful?

Yes.

It may be simple and easy to understand, but it’s grossly inaccurate. It can lead patients to believe their spine is fragile—often resulting in fear, avoidance of movement, and worse outcomes.

Now consider the opposite extreme:

“Your back pain may be related to impaired lumbar neuromuscular control, increased compressive and shear forces on the facet joints, nociceptive input, and long-term central sensitization resulting in fear-avoidance patterns.”

Is that helpful?
Probably not.

It’s accurate, but too complex to be meaningful to most patients.

The ideal explanation lies somewhere in the middle:
Accurate enough to be true, simple enough to be understood.

When Simplicity Becomes a Health Myth

Take the popular idea that running is bad for your knees.

This statement is simple, easy to understand, and widely repeated. But it’s not accurate for the general population. While this might apply to a specific subset of individuals, the broader truth requires context, nuance, and detail.

Oversimplifications like this turn into “common knowledge,” and once repeated enough times, they can mislead people into avoiding healthy activities based on false beliefs.

The Bottom Line: Truth Requires Detail

When complex topics are simplified, they inevitably become less true.
Truth requires precision, and precision requires detail.

Simplification is useful—and often necessary—for learning. But both practitioners and patients should remain aware of the trade-off:

More simplicity = less accuracy.
More accuracy = more complexity.

Finding the balance is key to good education, better health decisions, and a clearer understanding of the body.