Wellne$$
Sophomore year of high school, I embarked on what was probably the most “California” thing I’ve ever done — a three-day “juice cleanse” during which I only consumed prepackaged fruit and vegetable juices six times a day. My inspiration came from the beauty gurus on my YouTube subscription list who had supposedly seen remarkable effects, from glowing skin to energy boosts, after completing such cleanses to “flush out their systems.” As it turns out, my “cleanse” did nothing but leave me horribly hangry and spike my blood sugar. Looking back now, armed with a healthy skepticism of poorly sourced health information I read online, I am horrified. Not only by my gullibility but by the $4.2 trillion global wellness industry that can lead naïve women like 16-year-old me to act on claims that unfortunately are too often backed by what amounts to pseudoscience.
As a result, millions of people are using products without a full and accurate understanding of how they can affect their health.
Although some supplements can provide essential nutrients and enhance health, there are over 90,000 products on the dietary supplement market that are not regulated as drugs by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, making it important to talk to a doctor before purchasing these products. For example, a recent investigation identified potentially harmful pharmaceutically active ingredients in hundreds of over-the-counter dietary supplements.
Although the billboards advertising multivitamins that fulfill daily vitamin requirements had me thinking otherwise, I discovered that it is far more beneficial to obtain these nutrients from whole foods. I now regret skipping glasses of milk to take calcium supplements instead. And while infographics exalting the benefits of cooking solely with coconut oil have flooded my Pinterest feed, the American Heart Association has warned that the product, due to its high saturated fat content, can increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. I’ve learned to question the health claims I encounter and seek out reliable sources when scrolling through the paid posts of Instagram influencers. But it’s not so easy!
I once fell for some enticing health claims for an “alternative” therapy to treat my severe food allergies (Sadly, I still can’t eat hummus!). It turns out what I was taking were nothing more than medically ineffective sugar pills. While the effectiveness of some alternative therapies such as acupuncture for certain pain conditions have been recognized through careful research, not all alternative therapies discussed in the media are assured to be safe. Despite what some health gurus would like to have us believe, there is no substitute for evidence-based medical practice.
As evidenced by the $1 trillion global personal care, beauty, and anti-aging sector, the wellness industry primarily targets women. These marketers often attract customers seeking to fit a narrowly defined feminine beauty ideal. Not only do products make us ashamed of the inevitable bloating and weight fluctuations that are a natural part of being a woman, they often are exclusionary to all but the few who can afford them. We are seeing the consequences of the obsession with “clean eating” diets they have promoted with the rise in eating disorders like orthorexia, a dangerous fixation on healthy eating. Also, rather than simply remaining cognizant of what they put into their bodies, many customers opt for unhealthy products marketed for quick weight loss such as the popular, highly advertised diet teas. Claims revolve around the premise that our bodies are rife with toxins that can somehow be eliminated by a magic pill or superfood blend — a notion that surely inspires juice cleanses, “detox” diets, and the overpriced wellness shots at my local smoothie shop. It’s easy to see the attraction of the idea that we need to “detoxify” our bodies. But we have livers and kidneys for this very purpose!
While growing public interest in a healthy lifestyle is an incredible development, we must be aware of deceptive marketing practices and the spread of misleading health information on social media. Luckily, I have found a multitude of clinically verified guides published by reliable organizations like the Mayo Clinic and the National Institutes of Health to investigate health claims I encounter. By exercising a careful skepticism of health information dispensed to us from nonmedical sources, we can still find and follow healthy practices in the Information Age.
