As I was scrolling through TikTok earlier this week, I was inundated with a variety of nutrition and wellness fads. I saw creators advertising Bloom Nutrition, eating a completely meat-based diet and cooking every single item from scratch. Some advertisements promoted weighted eye masks aimed at reducing headaches and apps for meditation. I couldn’t help but wonder how anyone could keep up with all these evolving health trends.
The current health and wellness industry is a collection of products and practices targeted at realizing the full potential of your well-being. This includes products that are aimed at improving mental health, physical health, fitness, nutrition, mindfulness, appearance and sleep. Yet, most of these products hinge on pseudoscience and are sold on baseless and exaggerated claims that hold little scientific legitimacy.
This market is captivated by trends, worth $4 trillion and growing at an increasingly high rate. Many of these products aren’t necessarily getting better with more innovation either — there are just more of them. The current health and wellness market not only takes advantage of vulnerable groups, but also exacerbates mental and physical health concerns. Unqualified therapists, scam wellness products and fad diets contribute to the inaccessibility of the wellness market.
Some of these concerns lie within the emerging mental wellness industry. A recent increase in mental health problems has exacerbated therapists’ workloads, so websites like BetterHelp and Talkspace have popped up to fill that gap with online therapy. Additionally, there is a therapist shortage that makes finding help even harder in the “real world.”
The problem with these services, especially BetterHelp, is that they are not providing quality care. Users of the app complain of therapists acting unprofessionally, arriving late and leaving early, promoting their own books and providing care that is unhelpful or even potentially triggering to clients. While these apps provide access to therapy that many users need, it’s better to go through a more accredited therapy organization that offers online services, rather than through a problematic platform like BetterHelp. While it’s hard to ensure that the quality of every single therapist is helpful, smaller in-person and local organizations generally are able to regulate their therapists more because they monitor less of them.
Much of the excess of wellness products is a result of media overconsumption. The rise of TikTok Shop and influencer brand promotions has made it so people are hyperaware of the wellness products on the market. When someone sees their favorite influencer advertising a product that they claim to use, viewers want to buy it. This is because people look up to these influencers or want to become influencers themselves. Owning the same products their favorite influencers use is one step closer to being them or being associated with them.
These “scientific claims” also prey on people who are experiencing chronic pain and looking for any solution that will fix it. For example, women are more susceptible to the wellness market, and they tend to experience chronic illnesses like headaches and chronic pain at a higher rate than men. These health products are advertised by harping on traditional beauty standards. Typically, weight loss products are promoted by women who are already skinny, saying that you could look like them if you were to use these products. But, this puts out a dangerous narrative, given the nuances of weight loss.For example, products like detox tea are advertised as ways to lose weight, strengthen the immune system and flush out toxins. But a closer look at the ingredients can tell us otherwise. Not only does this tea not work as a weight loss tool, but it can also even be dangerous to consume as some consumers don’t know that it serves as a mild laxative.
The cost of all these products adds up. From fancy detox smoothies to massages, most people cannot afford to live in the modern state of “well-being.” We need to shed our current definition of wellness that requires a sense of opulence and instead focus on the basics, like proper nutrition, exercise, quality sleep and stress-relieving activities. While there are some amazing products on the market, wellness doesn’t need to come with all these pricey bells and whistles. Find an activity and try your best to stick with it. Try out the basics like journaling or meditating. Work with a professional, like a therapist or a nutritionist, if you want to improve wellness further. Wellness is admirable, and with effort, it can also be attainable.
Eliza Phares is an Opinion Columnist who writes about current events and campus culture. She can be reached at ephares@umich.edu.