Wellness trends that promote anything but wellness!

If you search for it, you'll find it. Googling for information and finding suitable sources can be highly complicated online. Especially with so much misinformation permeating our various feeds.

A recent study by Pew Research Centre found that almost 30% of UK adults between the ages of 23 and 49 have tried wellness or fitness plans they discovered while scrolling through their social media. That number is only increasing as more adults see TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter as their primary medium for news and content.

We live in an age of hyper-partisan criticism regarding mainstream media, but we rarely apply similar levels of scrutiny to alternative sources. That said, popular yet ineffective and sometimes even dangerous wellness and fitness routines are gaining traction online. We explore some movements (from mild to insane) that gained traction and promote anything but wellness!

Raw Milk

For those who don't regularly boil or fry your milk, you may wonder how it could get any rawer than it already is. The answer is quite disturbing, and it has been making the rounds on social media for the past decade. Raw milk hasn't been purified of all the dangerous microbes that make it safe to drink.

According to some wellness Tiktokers, milk pasteurisation drains the substance of all of its most beneficial nutrients. Someone may wish to tell them that regular milk is not intended for humans in the first place and that extracting microbes meant for baby calves is more beneficial than leaving them in. While some things are great raw, like veggies and fruits, milk, on the other hand, isn't.

Dry scooping before a workout

This strange TikTok trend went viral mid-February and encouraged fitness enthusiasts to take their pre-workout powders without water. According to a report from Healthline, this trend can cause various health complications, from lung infections to digestive issues. Many healthcare professionals came out to discourage this trend in the subsequent months.

In some cases, this trend can lead to even more severe issues, such as cardiovascular distress and, in extreme cases, even death. Experts continue to warn fitness enthusiasts to add water and follow the instructions provided by their powder manufacturer.

The infamous saltwater flushes

The saltwater flush is not anything new. Pseudoscientific claims that drinking water saturated with salt can cleanse your body have floated around Youtube and Facebook for quite some time. The claim is that salt can clean and flush toxins from your system and even help you lose weight.

Health professionals and commentators have pointed out that salt cleanses are entirely unnecessary, awful to the taste, and can even cause health complications if continued over an extended time. One commentator, Dietitian and Youtuber Abbey Sharp, said that salt flushes are like "napalm for your stomach." and exceedingly dangerous. Abbey noted this in one of her videos dedicated to exposing "wellness BS."

Nyquil chicken

While some wellness tips may appear curious at first glance, one can only describe this next trend as crazy. Following the "Sleepy Chicken" challenge on TikTok, this trend encourages users to cook chicken in Nyquil (a cold flu solution consisting of paracetamol, dextromethorphan, and doxylamine). 

It's impossible to believe anyone would waste their time on anything as unappetising as this. Still, following the pandemic, many, including the former US president himself, had been pushing alternative therapeutics to combat and even cure Covid 19. Nyquil Chicken, a cross between chicken soup and pharmaceuticals, was meant to alleviate sore throats. The FDA described it as harmful and "silly", and that boiling certain medications can change their chemical properties, turning them toxic. 

Regardless of how attractive, curious, or even "revolutionary" some of these wellness, fitness and cooking trends may be. The sad reality is that what we see in our news feed is not curated or fact-checked. Unlike media agencies, who have to operate under a level of accountability and responsibility, most homemade videos that go viral will never experience the same scrutiny.

While SOME of these trends seem utterly outrageous, many may seem innocent, innovative, and beneficial. As such, remaining sceptical and taking what you see online with a pinch of salt (no pun intended) is perhaps the only way to combat potentially dangerous misinformation in modern media platforms.

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