With only two months until New Year’s, there is certain to be a huge influx of wellness-related content on our social media pages. While the products and routines influencers are trying to sell you may sound like a perfect solution to get into the best health of your life, much of what you see has no credibility. I am minoring in Nutrition at the University of Washington (UW), and for one of my classes I have been reading “Live Nourished: Make Peace with Food, Banish Body Shame, and Reclaim Joy” by registered dietitian nutritionist Shana Minei Spence. This book has given me so many insightful views on diet culture, nutrition, health, and wellness. I recently followed her on Instagram as well, where she shares science-backed nutrition knowledge, and I highly recommend checking out her page.
In her book, Spence explains that wellness is often used as a synonym for health that is rooted in the desire to obtain a thin, Eurocentric body ideal at all costs. It targets individuals who are looking to build their health beyond mainstream techniques. As of when the book was published in 2024, the global wellness market has an estimated worth of $1.5 trillion, and the success can be credited to the business model that influencers follow. Social media content creators in thin bodies understand that their audience wants to know what their secret to “health” is. The influencer then caters to the fear of their audience, spreading false narratives such as “the government is trying to poison us” or that “companies are paying off the government to put whatever they want in our food.” These creators use an authoritative fearmongering voice, and their audience falls for it. The influencers make their money off of interactions with their content and through buying products they sell, promising a healthier lifestyle, and we base their credibility solely on their appearance.
For example, wellness advertisement often push for the need for clean eating, even though there is no clear definition of what this means. It is simply a phrase used to appeal to consumers, plus this label often excludes cultural meals. This exclusion then evolves into a form of racism, where cultural foods become labeled as “unclean” or “dirty” and are used to explain differences in health outcomes. These differences actually stem from social determinants of health that are rooted in lack of access and inequity in healthcare, not a “dirty” cultural food. This is also something wild to think about when such a variety of cultures have so many nutritious foods!
A lot of wellness influencers make the point that food in the United States is contaminated or poisoned, while food in Europe is healthier. This is untrue. In the U.S., we use a risk-based approach to banning certain ingredients, which means we consider the potential to cause harm and the potential harm of an exposure. European countries use a hazard-based approach, banning all ingredients and chemicals that have even the smallest potential to cause harm. In the U.S., it looks like our food has more unnecessary ingredients on nutrient labels; however, in Europe, spices and flavoring agents are not listed on these labels. We also often hear people talk about how they lost weight on their trip to Europe and credit it to the “cleaner” food. The weight loss is most likely due to factors like a shift in work-life balance, being less sedentary, a decrease in stress due to the fact that you’re on vacation, and different socioeconomic factors and lifestyles in this new environment.
The last major message pushed by wellness gurus is that processed foods should be avoided at all costs, yet many of these people do not even know what processed food is. A processed food is a food that has been manipulated in some way, and that does not make it bad or unhealthy. Here are the groups that foods are sorted into when considering the amount of processing:
Group 1 Unprocessed or Minimally Processed Foods: These include fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables, grains, meats, eggs, legumes, and nuts or seeds. Processing in Group 1 foods looks like the removal of inedible parts of the item, and no addition of substances to the original form.
Group 2 Processed Culinary Ingredients: These include oils (olive, coconut, etc.), animal fats (butter), maple syrup, and honey. These items have been processed through pressing, refining, grinding, etc.
Group 3 Processed Foods: These include canned vegetables, fruit, meat, fish, cheese, bread, wine, beer, and cider. Processing often looks like the addition of oil, salt or sugar by means of canning, pickling, smoking, curing, or fermentation.
Group 4 Ultra-Processed Foods: These include sugar-sweetened beverages, sweet snacks, reconstituted meat products, pre-prepared frozen meals, canned soup, chicken nuggets, and ice cream. Processing these foods looks like extraction and chemical modification.
Most people do not realize that processed foods often provide sustenance to American diets because they greatly contribute to food security and nutrition security. They are great for individuals living in food deserts, meaning they face societal inequities in access to food. An area is constituted as a food desert if at least one-third of the population lives farther than one mile away from a supermarket in urban areas, or greater than ten miles for rural areas. Processed foods provide substance for those with mobility disabilities where walking and/or climbing stairs can be difficult, meaning that shopping is made difficult as well. Lastly, processed foods work well for those with cognitive disabilities that involve difficulties in concentration, remembering, and decision-making. They need something quick and easy to put together in order to get proper nutrition and nourishment. 6.8% of Americans face some form of difficulty doing errands, and processed foods are often the solution.
This covers just a few of the messages wellness influencers are sharing on the internet in order to generate fear and make money. If you want to learn more about the dark side of the health and wellness industry, I highly recommend reading “Live Nourished.” It does not require any nutrition background and is interesting and engaging. It also reminds you to think twice before trusting what social media influencers with no qualifications have to say on the internet.
Further reading:
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/what-are-food-deserts.
https://doi.org/10.1093/advances/nmac026.