You can’t shop at a grocery store or pharmacy without being subject to eye-catching labels promoting health benefits, from probiotic yogurt claiming to aid in gut health, to “detox kits” promising an easy cleanse of unwanted bodily toxins. A quick surf online and you will find endless wacky “wellness” tips and trends: A-lister Kim Kardashian got a vampire facial, injecting her own blood into her face with the hope of rejuvenating skin cells. Demi Moore swears by the convention of “leech therapy.” Others encourage charging crystals, and trying supplements to curb a raging sweet tooth or fight off stubborn insomnia.
Wellness is everywhere, an all-consuming concept that transforms every aspect of life it touches: food, exercise, leisurely activities and work. Making up an industry valued at $4.4 trillion, the wellness economy often provides unproven alternatives to consumers who want to engage in health beyond conventional healthcare, creating a breeding pool for pseudoscience nutritionists, health scammers, and certain wellness influencers to deceive vulnerable victims.
Marketers have been using scientific buzzwords to promote their products and programs for centuries, starting from snake oil in the 1800s. In a practice known as “scienceploitation,” individuals and brands borrow language from emerging areas of science in order to “back” unproven claims. Applied kinesiology, a popular wellness practice and supposed allergy “diagnosis” method, also relies on unvalidated health theories to create a selling point. In a similar fashion, stem cell clinics, often promoted by influencers such as Joe Rogan, advertised stem-cell therapy for serious diseases like cancer, even though these stem-cell practices have a limited amount of clinical data to back up their efficacy. Wellness brands may pad their websites with links to studies; these studies, however, are often simply cherry-picked summaries of emerging data with no mention of said product or practice in particular.
The supplement and multivitamin industry, a major constituent of the wellness economy, also includes products that oftentimes don’t actually make good on the flashy promises glazing their packaging. Christy Harrison, a dietician and host of the “Food Psych” podcast warns against purchasing wellness products from manufacturers who rely on vague terms such as “boosts,” “aids,” “stimulates” and “optimizes” to suggest positive health outcomes. There is no quantifiable way to measure an unspecific word such as “boosts,” and supplement companies, which do not have to prove effectiveness to the Food and Drug Administration, often use the terms above as a selling crutch.
According to Harrison, one food or product will likely also not drastically improve wellbeing or make-or-break one’s health. Thus, hyperbolic terms such as “miracle,” “breakthrough” and “secret” should be treated with special skepticism, especially as studies find that more than 850 dietary supplements in the U.S. contain hidden and illegal ingredients. These ingredients include “brain-enhancing” or “fat-burning” chemicals such as DMAA and sibutramine, agents often linked to strokes, heart-failures, and sudden death.
The sketchy side of the supplement industry as well as other exploitative health practices have proliferated exponentially with the rise of social media platforms. Wellness influencers, most prominently Instagram, Tiktok and Facebook fitness instructors, often claim to know and share the secrets to a healthy lifestyle. These fitness instructors may promote unsafe practices, set unrealistic expectations, and advertise quick-fix solutions, such as taking weight loss pills and fasting, for trusting, vulnerable audiences excited to address issues they find about their own bodies. Even more sinisterly, certain wellness influencers often directly feed on the vulnerability of their audiences by discussing poorly understood conditions, such as autoimmune conditions that specifically affect women’s reproductive health. With the underinvestment in women’s health, it is no surprise that women, who disproportionately experience “medical gaslighting” and misdiagnosis, turn to these influencers in desperation for promised solutions.
Wellness websites, such as Goop and MoonJuice, for example, push products targeted toward young women, mothers, and aging women, with products including “The Mother Load” promising to help get “moms back on their feet,” and other products such as “Balls in the Air,” claiming to increase productivity in women. Gwyneth Paltrow, the founder of Goop, touts that these wellness products can be consumed as self-sufficient stand-ins to replace actual health professionals for women, a dangerous claim that can lead to more undiagnosed illnesses and severe health issues.
When engaging with products and programs, such as Paltrow’s, that promise to deliver health positives or “wellness,” scientist Michael Caulfield recommends practicing the S.I.F.T. method: Stop and pause before making any changes to your lifestyle and diet, investigate the source of the health claims, find potential coverage from more trust-worthy sources, and trace the health claims back to a primary source such as a clinical study by reputable organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While seeking methods of wellness is a critical part of achieving a healthy lifestyle, it is crucial to be confident that these methods truly bring wellness to your life.
