How Influencers Have Hijacked Your Health
Why do you want what everyone is saying you should have?
I am so done with watching random influencers romanticizing going to cafes in a new outfit every day and showing as if that’s the only thing you can do to make your day better or to make life beautiful.
The extreme consumerism, the show-off, the exaggeration of ‘let’s grab matcha with me,’ or ‘oh my God, I am obsessed’ with even the tiniest most useless thing ever.
I personally cannot give a damn about what these influencers do in their personal lives but when you put it out there, in a way that is not true but scripted just so you can look cute or cool, you inspire the entire generation to follow your footstep. When normal people watch this, sitting behind the screens as if they have no life of their own, we start to develop the desire to do and have the same thing.
One epidemic that is impacting our health in such an invisible way that you might never even notice is going to a cute cafe (unnecessarily) and calling it romanticizing life.
It’s common and widely considered as ‘cute’ among female influencers and their audience.
Seriously, I have a question for all women — have we lost our minds as a community, or what?
If you don’t believe me, here is what the data says:
“In 2024, the market size of the coffee and snack shop sector in the U.S. exceeded 68 billion U.S. dollars. Meanwhile, the industry boasted around 77,500 businesses and 900,000 employees that same year.”
“The global cafe market size was valued at USD 298.72 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 5.4% from 2024 to 2030 to reach USD 430.02 billion by 2030.”
Now you might question that ‘Isn’t it a good thing? As the industry grows, it will create more employment and money?’
Well, yes!
But mark my words. As any industry grows, it creates more health hazards than wealth.
When the fashion industry grew, it surely created employment opportunities but it also polluted the river and air — leaving us decorated in good clothes with not a drop of clean water or air to breathe.
Similarly, as the cafe industry grows, it will (and is) creating adults who have no idea how much sugar they end up consuming first thing in the morning because they want to romanticize or pose a ‘cool’ aesthetic picture like the influencer they admire so much doing on social media.
To give you a gist, one coffee cup of Starbucks has:
And guess what?
We should not have more than 30 grams of sugar in a day. But one cup of coffee (any, from any place) has almost double the amount of sugar.
What does that extra sugar do?
It makes us addicted to its taste so much so that we find reasons to have it — ‘We only live once. Or I am going to take a walk and have my coffee and romanticize life. Or coffee is so essential for my survival while remembering the cool anecdote from a stupid TV series.’
What you think is cool or cute is actually an invisible health hazard that will catch up with you, gradually.
Not just that, as more people find sitting in cute cafes, clicking pictures, ordering food that they don’t know how it will impact their bodies, you feel that ‘this is what life is about.’ Hanging out with friends, and posting your aesthetic picture from a new cafe every few days.
But you don’t realize that this is just a cage of influencer culture. I am not saying hanging out with friends or indulging in good food should be a crime. However, you should keep in mind what you eat and at what frequency.
There are thousands of other (better) ways to ‘hang’ or have fun, which might not look cute to your Instagram audience who you are trying to prove, consciously or subconsciously, what a great life you have.
You can invite your friends once a week to your home and cook something for them from scratch.
You can go out to a small town near your city with your friends, explore this new place, and call it an outing worth remembering.
You can go to learn pottery with your friends and have the kind of fun that stays with you until your grandchildren asks you ‘What do you use to do for fun?’
You don’t have to sit in a cafe, buy yourself flowers to call it a ‘solo date,’ you can instead go and learn different things on your own, or make something good for yourself at home, go to a nearby garden/park, sit under a tree and read — grow your mind and relax at the same time.
There are zillions of ways to have fun, relax, and enjoy life and none of them should involve putting your health on hold because it looks cute.
If you don’t believe me or think I am being an old lady, look around you and tell me how many people you think are healthy.
Every other woman you meet has PCOS today and the majority of them don’t even know they have it.
The biggest reason for PCOS is an unhealthy lifestyle — eating out more, no exercise, and less sleep.
What used to be the cause of diaseses is now our lifestyle. And we call it ‘cool of living life.’
I am not a doctor nor a scientist but I have been working with a person who has done his courses from Stanford and Harvard on health, and sleep. It can take forever to tell you what I have learned but I want you to do some homework. Just go to ChatGpt and ask it a question related to health.
Ask it what happens when you consume excessive sugar.
Ask it how sugar is hidden in every little thing from bread to flour.
Ask what not getting 8 hours of regular sleep does to your brain and body.
Ask it what happens when you don’t move your butt (because that apparently is not what influencers ‘show off.’)
Conclusion; A New Way To Enjoy Life:
I go to cafes as well. But once in a while. Once a month, probably.
I want to go almost every other too. I like the thought of ordering a small muffin or cookie along with a good coffee and writing or reading. What a delicious way to spend quality time.
But I control myself every time because I know that health is more important. And the above picture looks better in my mind because this is how it has been marketed to us.
So, I go to my balcony, make tea at home, or grab a bowl of fruit, and read or write there. It’s just as good. I used to be one of those people who thought going to cafes, sitting alone, and drinking coffee was like orgasms from heaven.
Back in 2023, I used to go to cafes at least thrice a week. It made me fat. It gave me acne. It made me lazier than ever.
I made changes this year. I still go out and spend quality time with myself but I don’t let some fantasy of looking ‘cute’ or ‘cool’ destroy my health.
I see kids in my city have so many options for hanging out. But each of these options is limited to a new cafe with new aesthetics to show off on their Instagram story or Snapchat.
Not only it’s impacting their physical health but unknowingly, they are learning a dangerous of living life — to show off what you have on your plate to people so they can know how rich you are or how much fun you have in your life.
They are kids. They don’t know it.
But you can make the change. Especially if you are a parent, it’s your responsibility to not let your kids slip away in this dangerous influencer culture that is robbing us of our health as well as our focus — we are leaning into a direction that is taking us away from what matters.
I don’t write articles on health. And I hope you realize that this article is not just about health.
It’s about understanding how these influencers, literally, are controlling our lives by controlling our minds. They set trends so they can make money. But we start following these trends as if it’s a religious ritual. We don’t realize that it’s another marketing gimmick. We don’t have to fall for their ‘I am obsessed you guys with this new…..whatever it is they are selling.’
Going out once in a while used to be such a beautiful ritual. Everyone used to look forward to it. There was a sense of purpose to it. Everyone together sharing one table. But now it’s just a way to avoid your life, escape your mind, and show your ‘cool’ life to people who don’t matter but whose validation you seek, without your conscious knowledge.
So, I am asking you to let go of this ‘need’ to show-off the life that you never chose for yourself. Let go of trying to get cute or cool pictures for your socials. Instead, enjoy life in a way that reaches your heart and makes you truly happy. Do what brings joy closer to your soul. Take risks that make your day-to-day life exciting. Learn new things. Try a new field as a hobby. And see how life gets better.
Doing what brings you true happiness may not give you cool aesthetics but it will bring you a lot closer to your heart.
And please, I beg you, for the love of God, don’t start doing everything that these influencers rub on your face, no matter how tempting or promising it looks.
If you liked this article, you will love my book — ‘The Magic of Creative Living: A Conscious Path to a Joyful Life.’
