Nominations are open for the 2024 GRIFTIES!

Unrelated, can we have a bonus episode where Mike just critiques countries lol I die every time he talks about england and denmark

I suspect others also ran into this, but i find it hard to recall what grift happened this year versus last year

Worse wellness take from a Celebrity (if a state supreme court counts as a celebrity): Ohio's Supreme Court ruling that "regarding the food item's being called a 'boneless wing,' it is common sense that that label was merely a description of the cooking style." Mostly sharing for the humor incase either of you missed it. https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/publications/2024/08/court-decision-concerning-boneless-chicken-wings-ignites

So excited for this episode haha, can’t wait! Happy holidays from Sweden! ❤️

Weirdest wellness trend : weight loss gummies

Best wellness take: no one. lol maybe jameela Jamil

Weirdest Wellness Trend - Sorry to have to write this down but labial dermal fillers

Giving me hope: the salmon are free in the Klamath River! These videos are making me so happy. Real health and healing to the Yurok and Karuk people and to the land itself.

Not sure where this fits in but the love for Ilona Maher vs the vitriol against Imane Khelif and the insane body policing that doubles when you add racism into the mix.

Have you guys already talked about the Numen? It's supposed to measure whether you're burning fat or sugar using just your breath?? Bonkers!

Beef tallow face cream!

Too late to nominate Eudemonia? https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/08/well/eudemonia-summit-wellness-palm-beach.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

idk WHAT this counts as but can we talk about how what we do in the shadows new season dropped with a fat suit? it was so shocking, in 2024, to do that. i had to stop watching it made me feel just terrible

Late-breaking nomination: Noom is hawking their own GLP-1 agonist 😱😱😱

Just hopping back in to state the obvious: Luigi Mangione was obviously the best wellness take of 2024

Athletic Greens/ AG1 powder and its shady AF founder!!!!

“RFK Jr.’s Lawyer Has Asked the F.D.A. to Revoke Approval of the Polio Vaccine. Aaron Siri, who specializes in vaccine lawsuits, has been at Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s side reviewing candidates for top jobs at the Department of Health and Human Services.”

I just came here with this very sad update about SquarEat: “As of November 2024, the SquarEats site is offline and the business appears to be defunct.” Source: Wikipedia 💔

the worst wellness take I’ve seen from an influencer this year has been a trend of small time influencers convincing extremely young girls that they need complex and extremely expensive skincare routines. Some products pushed are extremely damaging to skin if used wrong.

I was at dinner tonight and could not focus on my food because the woman next to me kept extolling the virtues of reverse dieting. It sounded wacky when she was describing it and when I googled it, it just seemed even more wacky and grifty!

the demonization of seed oils!

The rise of Raw Milk has to be in there somewhere. Raw Milk truthers columbusing the Pasteurization process like silicon valley bros inventing public transit again. It’s pure Grift, and frankly I hope it makes an appearance on the Cursties as well.

Weirdest wellness trend: Lumen (at www lumen.me) . Apparently it's like a personal breathalyzer to "track your metabolism"? I can't imagine it actually works or does anything, and yet I keep getting podcast ads for it.

I know I'm late to this party, but a recent paper in Nature (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-024-01858-9) is actually a maybe good nutrition study! Unlike most foods in diet studies, coffee drinkers KNOW they drink it every day, and non drinkers are clear that they don't. The study looks at and characterizes differences in the gut microbiome of coffee drinkers vs non drinkers.

Public health victory with 96% effective twice yearly injection to prevent HIV. It's significantly more effective than prep and addresses the concern that half of users taking prep stop after about a year. https://news.emory.edu/stories/2024/11/hs_lenacapavir_trial_27-11-2024/story.html?utm_source=Emory_Report&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Emory_Report_EB_120624

Weirdest/dumbest wellness product I’ve seen repeatedly this year in advertisements- antimicrobial sheets. https://www.miraclebrand.co/pages/bedding-collection Have these people not heard of washing their linens and changing them out every week? Sheets do not need silver in them. Also, “Cortisol Face”? Having a round face does not mean you have excess cortisol, and if you do have elevated cortisol, you likely have multiple other concomitant signs/symptoms and need to see an endocrinologist, not some random TikTok wellness influencer for an overpriced saffron supplement.

i rly wanna hear you guys talk about nara smith

I think the best wellness take of 2024 is the "i love my curvy wife" episodes (there's a part 1 and part 2) on Jaime Loftus' Sixteenth Minute podcast. She explains the viral wife guy gram post (the love! the backlash! the scandal! the pivot to rap music?), let's him (try) to explain himself (it's bananas) and then talks to fat activists about their take on the whole thing. idk, maybe it's not wellness per se, but I thought it was an intriguing take on an internet fame cycle that thought it was about women and body positivity but wasn't really about either.

This probably fits for weirdest wellness trend, but the marketing of the rhythm method as a new straightforward method of contraception (they probably can’t use that word, but that’s how it’s framed), usually involving some app. I’ve seen ads on the subway for this where you’d never know it wasn’t a medication based on the copy! Also wondering about the safety of tracking such things in the Current Hellscape (tm)

Weirdest wellness trend: Dr Anthony Chaffee's plant-free diet ("the carnivore diet").

Weirdest trend: seed oils are bad for some reason??

Would love your thoughts on Emily Oster. I held her to a high standard, on par with Michael, but seeing some cracks in her logic lately and she’s friends with the Freakonomics guy so I’m less trusting now

Something that’s been giving me hope is seeing the trend on TikTok where working class moms film their process of making dinners. I don’t know what the original intention was for the trend, but for me it has very much turned into a way to help de-stigmatize the type of meals that I would have growing up. Like my mom was often the only adult in the house who was working. Between working overtime, having to get support from the foodbank, and not being able to afford having our oven fixed when it broke—we often ate frozen foods, or anything that was easy to make in a toaster oven and safe for a very picky neurodivergent family (lol). At first all I saw were hate comments on these videos but now I see a lot of people hopping on the trend and commenting their support. Also, I haven’t seen these videos, but I heard that there’s a woman on TikTok who’s making videos about how to make things like Turkey dinners and stuff using all food items bought from the Dollarstore (US “Dollar Tree” I think). Both trends feel very hope-core to me!!!

Jim gaffigan’s new comedy special “The Skinny”

This house report https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/02/health/house-covid-subcommittee-report/index.html

Weirdest wellness trend - it’s not new, I remember it from the 80s, but definitely weird! I keep getting diet ads on Instagram with before and after pictures that are drawings. Sketches that look like obvious colored pencils not something photo realistic. Yes, it is possible to draw someone thinner, but that doesn’t demonstrate that a diet or diet product works (because we know they don’t work!).

For griftiest grifter (thanks to my father in law and his new favorite detox book...): Ty Bollinger

Liz Seibert for influencer! She's got it all! Raw milk! Carnivore diet with raw liver! A tiny intermittent fasting window! Eating disorder "recovery" while doing a crazy diet and IF (and working as a very thin runway model)! Taking 30 supplements a day!

Biggest public health win: Government negotiating price caps on insulin!( we'll see how long this lasts) and the first OTC birth control pill in the US! Weirdest Wellness: RAW MILK. I know it's not new and not as objectively odd as like the square foods from last year but the level of dedication people have to it in spite of bird flu is just upsetting and confusing. Hope for 2025: I'm not sure how hopeful this is, but, to me, it seems like these next few years are going to include some big fights between an administration that wants to have everything its own way and the lobbying/special interest groups that have been having everything their way for years, especially when it comes to agriculture, the food system etc. They're both bad actors, so my hope is that they will just fight each other tooth and nail and reveal how poisonous both sides are. Maybe they'll be able to rip each other's masks off enough that we as a nation can rally behind a better way. Also, in a Schadenfreude way, I kind of can't wait for RFK Jr. and co. to start trying to tell like Coca Cola and McDonalds and all these big industries how to behave and then feel the full weight of the political influence they have been buying for decades fall on them. You wanted rampant capitalism and now you'll see what it gets you!

Weirdest trend: coffee enemas to get the “toxins” out

Dandelion tea for weight loss- it’s a diuretic

Gua Sha made a KILLING this past year and sold so many units. And it seems like they don’t work, or don’t work long term anyway. I would say biggest grift of 2024.

Griftiest grifter: Johann Hari (how does this guy keep getting book deals?) After plagiarizing / fabricating stuff on depression and attention spans (and everything else he's written), he's now plagiarizing / fabricating stuff, with added faux-compassion, about obesity and semaglutide. A sentence I never thought I would write: He should stick to the incest erotica. What gives me hope: young people. There are so many decent, sweet, passionate, sound young people out there. They've been handed such an absolute mess by people of my generation (X) and older, and yet they still manage to treat themselves and others with so much compassion.

Best celebrity take specifically best real housewives take: Heather Gay being honest about taking semaglutide and feeling super weird about it because she was basically bullied into it by social media and her fellow housewives (including an alleged cult leader who married her step grandfather—RHOSLC is WILD to say the least). She also spoke out against the body positivity movement for not being inclusive enough. It’s not a lot but it’s rare for a real housewife to be this open about everything!

Castor oil in the belly button. I have seen so many videos of young women doing this....

Biggest Wellness Scandal: RFK Jr's continued existence and support. Biggest Public Health Victory of 2024: The FDA releasing the Natural Harvest report, indicating that Tara Flour ISN'T safe for human consumption. Also just a great MP callback. Things that bring me hope for the future. In January the first functional semiconductor made from graphene was created; and a viable and sustainable approach for gold recovery from e-waste was demonstrated. In February a battery based on calcium was presented; able to charge and discharge fully 700 times at room temperature it's described as a potential alternative to lithium, being 2500 times more abundant on Earth. Also in February a blood test to assess heart attack risk in the next six months was developed. In March the removal of HIV from infected cells using CRISPR gene-editing technology is reported [but is a long ways from being an available treatment]. In April an entirely new class of antibiotics with potent activity against multi-drug resistant bacteria is discovered & the first personalized melanoma vaccine based on mRNA, mRNA-4157/V940, enters a final-stage Phase III trial. In May a team at Oregon State University showed that using iron instead of cobalt and nickel for cathodes inside Lithium-ion batteries improves both safety and sustainability. In June the Iberian Lynx was moved from the Endangered List to Vulnerable status after its population surged from 62 in 2001 to 648 in 2022. In August the world's first mRNA lung cancer vaccine, BNT116, begins a Phase I clinical trial in seven countries. In September a group of researchers in Sweden demonstrate a battery made of carbon fibre composite as stiff as aluminum and energy-dense enough to be used commercially. In October researchers at McGill University report a significant advance in solid-state batteries, which could improve their safety and efficiency. The new technique involves using a polymer-filled porous membrane, allowing lithium ions to move freely and eliminating the interfacial resistance between the solid electrolyte and the electrodes. Scientists at Binghamton University developed artificial plants with leaves using biological solar cells, which can perform respiration, photosynthesis and generate electricity. Honorable Mention: A study of the infinite monkey theorem concludes that even if all 200,000 chimpanzees in the world typed at the rate of one key per second, the entire works of Shakespeare would never be typed before the end of the universe. Humor in science is important.

It’s definitely stating the obvious, at this point, but I just saw this article featured by the WaPo on instagram: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2024/11/27/exercise-weight-loss-science/?utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=wp_main&crl8_id=263b9130-389a-400f-9242-50d97fc90fce I couldn’t read it beyond the instagram post because it’s pay-walled, but surely this can be counted as some good news/a positive take?

seed oils. please god 😩

For the Grifties: The Shred Diet. Please. There is not one person in their promos that I don't want to slap.

i don't know where it fits but wicked press tour anorexia discourse is breaking me

The worst is those hot trad wifes. Like that carnivore lady who makes her children everything from scratch. Also, homesteading generally with it’s Christian undertones. the best is definitely the homesteading drag queen. Also whats with the medical tourism to Turkey?!

Biggest positive for sure is celeste barber. That woman has done so much for highlighting the insanity that is the beauty and fashion industry, though I do have mixed feelings about her cosmetics line….

Best celebrity take (?): Billie Eilish singing “People say I look happy just because I got skinny, but the old me is still me and maybe the real me and I think she’s pretty.” Kinda nice to hear it said in a pop song 🤷‍♀️

Worst celebrity: kristin cavallari saying she doesn’t wear sunscreen. This is also grouped with the general gen z anti sunscreen tik tok claims that sunscreen chemicals are more harmful than sun exposure.

While slightly outside wellness, I'd nominate Coty Craven for a grifter shoutout. He invented several accessibility advocates and made up people with fake disabilities for sympathy and money, including things like giving these fake people cancer and other mysterious medical problems. https://www.ign.com/articles/a-prominent-accessibility-advocate-worked-with-studios-and-inspired-change-but-she-never-actually-existed

Giving me hope: Somebody Somewhere (HBO) final season for its (human, complicated and imperfect but also wonderful) representation of fat people, queer people, love, resilience, and humor.

Worst - Wicked discourse

1: Best- responibootstraps 2: Worst- Brains Worms! 3: Scandal- Aubrey did not read her audiobook! Gasp! 4: Weirdest- Michael holding his microphone. 5: Victory- Michael can clap now! And Aubrey was in a movie! 6: Grift- cherry bark extract. 7: Hope- I hope to someday see these family pictures of Michael’s that Aubrey has seen.

wellness trend: raw milk. i swear i cannot go a day without seeing people buying raw milk from animal supply stores and claiming it is amazing

Griftiest grifter to RFK Jr for making his way to the white house with his fucked up views

It feels redundant to say given it's already been said about a million times but my favourite take is definitely Ilona Maher. Oh, to have had someone like her to look up to as a child! For the way she showcases not just her strength and grace towards her body on the good days, like her excellent BMI takedown. But also the vulnerable days, where she doesn't feel as body positive, and doesn't let that be a shameful or secretive thing either. I think both sides of that are so powerful. Maybe reflective of the spaces I'm in being more parenting and less wellness focused these days but a big grifty trend I've been noticing has been this food dyes thing - not to say that artificial food dyes don't have any problems or there aren't ways to regulate food differently, there's a reason red 40 isn't really a thing here in Australia! But from the studies I've seen it's all been blown so out of proportion, there are so many bigger issues. And not for nothing, it also really feels like it's adding stigma to ND people - I've seen people talk about "fixing" their kids' ADHD through diet which is a myth as old as...well, as old as ADHD probably.

Best person of the year: Ilona Maher for just owning her strength, her body, her cellulite, and being a freaking badass weirdest person: Teigan Girard. A reclusive cookbook writer who lives in a compound with her family and profits off of cultural appropriation. Also her dad does all her dishes?????? Freaking weird

Recent hope for 2025: seeing communities step up and come together to continue fighting against hate. I hope that we don’t lose the collective anger toward inequality and can keep making progress towards a more equitable world

Weirdess wellness trend: I heard an ad somewhere for weight loss earrings and thought-really? I searched on Amazon and sure enough they are a thing. Not sure this is a trend but wow! Podcasts and communities like this give me hope. I love being able support people like Aubrey and Mike who do the research and share what they learn with all of us with humor, grace, and compassion. I personally feel more committed than ever to do what I can to make the world a kinder and more understanding place for everyone. To focus on what is before me that I do have control over. This too shall pass...

Best take: Ilona Maher 10000% OR RFK jr’s brainworm, doing the work to try and save us from him. Little guy just wasn’t fast enough. Wellness Scandal: the removal of the “coaches” from beachbody/BODI Weirdest: anything and everything ballerina farms. Griftiest grifter is none other than our new head of health and human services, AI’s version of an aged Bradley Cooper, RFK jr.

I'm sure this has been said - but my favorite take of the year was Ilona Maher (and other Olympians) really demonstrating on social media that health/fitness/size do not necessarily correlate!

Griftiest Grifter: the makers of Qi Blanco, which is supposed to like .... harness the power of water in your body, or something? To make some kind of protective fiels???? As their website says: "Experience The Benefits Of Coherent Water At A Cellular Level: - Personal Growth - EMF & 5G Protection - Enhanced Connection To The Quantum Field" It gets sillier, actually. My favorite part is that it's endorsed by two people whose qualifications are just listed as "book authors; life coaches" I'm also not sure why it's called Qi Blanco... are they intending it to read as "Qi for white people"?

Grittiest grifter and/or worst trend (sort of): Hims & Hers Health. I say sort of because I've been getting a lot of ads for them on YouTube lately but I'm not aware of any actual scandals - yet. To me they seem like a fucking time bomb for a major scandal and/or major investigation. Lemme explain: They're a publicly-traded telehealth company based in San Francisco, and they're doing this unholy alliance of actual prescription meds (including shit that you *should not ever* take unsupervised, like bupropion and Lexapro), grifty-grifter supplements (the most common ads I get are for treatment of hair loss), and sex toys/sexual health. The very first ad I saw was advertising for treatment of hair loss after pregnancy - a thing that is very common due to rapidly falling estrogen levels, and which *routinely fixes itself* after about three months. Three months is, coincidentally, exactly the timeline on which Hims & Hers promises you'll see results with their product. I CALL THIS A GRIFT. I'm also very concerned, in general, about the way they lump the bullshit stuff (supplements) in with the legit stuff (prescription antidepressants) and put it all under the broad umbrella of "wellness." (Seriously, their homepage for women's health has a section header that says "Hers is healthcare that feels like self-care" *that's what all healthcare is Karen!*) Conflating evidence-based medicine with unregulated supplements and calling it all "wellness" REALLY blurs some very important lines, and legitimizes the bullshit while (in my opinion) undermining the actual medicine. (Sorry for the screed. I understand this is maybe not the strongest contender for these categories this year, but I *highly* recommend keeping an eye on these folks because I suspect we'll be seeing a lot more of them.)

Biggest public health win: oral contraceptive birth control pills became available OTC and online in March of this year! It's not all oral contraceptives, just a progesterone-only one called Opill (progesterone-only pills are sometimes called the "mini-pill"), but this is still a HUGE win for women's health and equitable access to sexual and reproductive health care. (Did it solve all issues of inequality? No, because it's $20 for one pack and some people can't afford that - and have fun getting your insurance to reimburse you if you're lucky enough to have insurance. But being able to get oral birth control OTC without having to take time off work and pay to go to a doctor to get it is huge.)

Late to the party but! For public health win, I saw they're releasing an OTC syphilis test, which I think is fantastic.

Biggest wellness scandal: "veneer techs". I feel awful for anyone who has fallen for them... Shows you that even when there is proper regulation in place, grifters are gonna grift. Whoever came up with these one day "veneer tech" courses also deserves a worst grifter nomination. Love the grifties every year. Wish you both happy holidays

Worst wellness take from an influencer: Tati endorsing the anti sunscreen conspiracy.

Best Wellness Influencer: @unbiasedscipod - she has easy ways of communicating facts about stupid "wellness" trends! Also Jen Hamilton for posting such great content on Abortion (as a nurse) and Mental health (for promoting real supports like Postpartum Support International)

Oh I guess my alternate nominee for worst wellness take is whatever horror show is in project 2025. I personally haven’t read it because it’s over 900 pages long of evil bullshit with, I assume, the writing quality of a third grader, but I assume Mike has because those are some of his favorite kinds of documents.

I get hope from co-organizing Kidical mass bike rides, which bring together community and help radicalize folks towards advocating for safer streets. Plus, kids on bikes!! https://hfx.bike/kidical-mass/

For best take, my nomination is tumblr user were—Ralph, of pineapple on a hydraulic press fame. He definitely also has a fetish, but when his non-horny beliefs come through, I like them. https://www.tumblr.com/were--ralph/763559709245603840/look-at-it-the-same-as-bodybuilding-if-you-want

Can I nominate HBO Max cancelling Our Flag Means Death for worst take? It certainly made me very unwell!

Best Celebrity: Adele, for losing wait due to stress and telling everyone she doesn’t recommend it. Wellness scandal: RFK Jr being in charge of healthcare with a dead brain worm in his head. Weirdest trend:Fecal Transplantation Greatest victory:Insulin price cap Griftiest grifter: intermittent fasting (it’s just starvation) Hope: We’re not in charge and there’s little we can do nationally, so we can focus on helping local. Accept what we cannot change, etc. Apologies if anything if anything is not 2024, time is meaningless

Aaaah, the Grifties are THE BEST way to destress after the madness of holidays with family... somebody please bottle Aubrey and Michael joking around and sell that as a supplement

Best wellness take/hope: Ilona Maher owning her body and strength. Best TikToks and Reels (the Olympian villa aka love island, explaining her BMI), showing of her strength in every choreography in DWTS (and people hating it on Instagram, because she was “just” lifting her partner Alan and not doing the feminine dancing steps).

What was the best wellness take from a celebrity or influencer in 2024? Ilona Mayer from Olympic Women’s Rugby Team - love her strength, beauty and sense of humor. What was the worst wellness take from a celebrity or influencer in 2024? Jake Paul challenging Mike Tyson (30+ years his senior) to fight. Not really a wellness thing, but Jake Paul def seems like a grifter and Mike Tyson is…well, he’s Mike Tyson. What was the biggest wellness scandal of 2024? The public ignoring Trump’s obvious decline in mental capacities and electing him to the white house again What was the weirdest wellness trend of 2024? GIGANTIC water bottles that go everywhere and are LOUD AS FUCK whenever they fall over. What was the biggest public health victory of 2024? people are voluntarily wearing masks or staying home when they are sick. Who was the griftiest grifter of 2024? RFK Jr. when combined with Joe Rogan And, because we live in hell now (again! still!), what's bringing you hope for 2025? Knowing that Mike and Aubrey are out there working their assess off to educate and entertain us

What was the weirdest wellness trend of 2024? Gigantic non-ergonomic cups for frail women What's bringing you hope for 2025? Women getting Bachelor's and Master's degrees at amazing rates

Dr. Oz! Possible cabinet pick yikes!

RFK Jr, it's got to be the guy that grifted his way all the way in to the government. Not to forget Dr Oz...

Weirdest take: Maintenance Phase grifter somehow became precursor for being a presidential cabinet pick for 2025

Tim Spector and Glucose Goddess. Griftiest of grifters for someone who lives outside the US

Raw milk. Gahhh.

Worst wellness take = Azealia banks tweeting ‘I’m extremely fat phobic towards men’ Gives me hope= gay bears responding by filling her retweets with sexy photos of fat men

Egg guy - Eddie Abbew - eats 12 boiled eggs for breakfast and posts the most crazy boring "reaction videos" to recipes that contain anything other than eggs or steak

I’m so late to this thread but- something that’s giving me hope: I managed to get the curriculum changed in the class I TA to be less bad! Previously students were assigned to evaluate how soda taxes impact obesity, now instead they will evaluate how soda taxes impact diabetes rates (in addition to including more literature on why obesity isn’t an effective measure of health outcomes). It’s definitely not a monumental improvement, but it is a small victory.

I agree with everyone that says jaw slings, mouth taping, etc.— the videos of all of them together are called “morning shed” videos where people say you have to “sleep ugly to wake up beautiful”. Absolutely haunting behavior

As something that’s bringing me hope - my province (Manitoba) began their universal school nutrition program! Every K-12 student in the province gets a meal or snack every day now. I know I had had been feeding more and more students within my class every year(I still keep snacks in my room and go through quite a bit, tbh), so this was very much needed.

And this could fall under what gives me hope or best wellness take, but I’ve been LOVING watching Dr. Jess on TikTok debunk all kinds of nutrition and wellness bullshit

As an employee of a federal health agency, I’m gonna have to vote RFK jr for griftiest grifter, for grifting himself all the way into a cabinet position 😭😭

The weirdest wellness trend are jaw slings that you wear at night. Bonus points if you put on mouth tape, and then frownies tape on your forehead, crows feet and marionette lines.

Oh also weirdest wellness trend all over my TikTok rn are the vibrating platforms that are supposed to be the same as running a mile or something.

Weirdest wellness trend imo is the mouth taping. I get it maybe for sleep but how in gods name is that supposed to give you a chiseled jawline and lose weight other than maybe you’re more well rested? And even that seems sus to me?

Worst Take: Christy Nault, a “Root Cause Practitioner” (???), claiming that environmental toxins cause gender dysphoria in children.

What's bringing me hope for 2025: all of the community work people are already doing to take care of each other. I've noticed a lot of mental health resources popping up, and I've heard of people offering to officiate emergency LGBTQ weddings pro-bono before the inauguration. Everyone is doing their best to look out for each other and take care of each other. We need strong communities more than ever, and it makes me hopeful to see everyone trying to make that happen

I have to revise griftiesr grift - Pete Evans just announced kids book with RFK Jr https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/food/eat/aussie-chef-pete-evans-releases-kids-cookbook-with-robert-f-kennedy-jr/news-story/f1343d3a29232f89b1417c77f09382cc

The weirdest wellness trend was the fucking cortisol nonsense. I can’t with the “happy juice” that somehow reduces cortisol and makes you skinny??? What a grift! Also influencers lying about being on a GLP-1 to sell their diets and exercise.

Unforch, I think RFK Jr. is the griftiest grifter. Grifted his way to HHS secretary! Sob.

Gives me hope: all the LGBT+ people who are in legislation this year! Katurah Herron, Rashaun Kemp, Sarah McBride, Gabby Selinas, and more!

Biggest wellness scandal: BetterHelp

Weirdest wellness trend: raw milk

Biggest public health victory: WIC increasing the cash value to purchase fruits and vegetables! I work for WIC and this has a been a game changer for participants. Also they are adding more non-dairy alternatives to WIC for things like cheese and yogurt. Yay! Go WIC! Offering healthy foods to kids and families!

I already nominated RFK Jr. for griftiest grifter but then I remembered that the Cass Report also came out this year, there's just been so much else going on that America kinda forgot about it. So I'm nominating Hilary Cass as well, if that's allowed.

For Best Wellness take from a celebrity or influencer, possibly Jameela Jamil's #MoveForYourMind, which is trying to advocate exercise detached from diet culture and weight loss. Her statement: "It’s taken me 20 years to get back into even light exercise because I’ve been so traumatized by my eating disorder history, and how our society has weaponized exercise into being a tool of diet culture rather than something we do for our mental health. The bralette tops and tight leggings and rooms full of mirrors and focus on definition, shape and size is just too much for me, and triggers old thoughts and habits. So I began to do it in baggy clothes with light snacks (as in, nothing that would make me throw up when I’m jumping up and down), and none of the emphasis is on my body, ONLY my mind. Doing this has revolutionized my relationship with exercise, my body, and my mind."

I was just listening to the ‘22 Grifties and it’s so upsetting hearing you talk about Dr. Oz saying “he’ll probably come back in some ghoulish form” and “hopefully we never have to talk about him again” and now look 😤

This isn't super specific, but best wellness take from an influencer is either Jen Hamilton (labor and delivery nurse) or Dr. Fran (OB/GYN) shouting it to the rooftops that bodily autonomy is healthcare. Jen promotes informed consent for all her patients and is really vocal about the racial inequities in women's healthcare in the US. Dr. Fran has put together a list of OB/GYN's who will perform tubal ligation without demanding consent from a partner, an age requirement, etc. Both have been really great advocates for people with uteruses!

Griftiest Grifters are Eli Lily and Novo Nordisk hahaha (but also not funny)

Weirdest wellness trend: it's a toss-up between raw milk and demonizing seed oils. Both are all over my TikTok feed and both are ridiculous.

Grittiest grifter has to be RFK jr, he grifted his way into the top health position in the country

Dr Oz running medicare?!

Griftiest grifter/worst take: Johann Hari‘s book Magic Pill on taking ozempic (n=1 but listen to all my insights!) and the subsequent wellness podcast circuit (“people we love need to be told to lose weight because we love them and don’t want them to die!” etc plus the only to be expected false attributions and claims in the book, eg https://amp.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/may/15/johann-hari-apologises-after-falsely-attributing-ozempic-claim-to-food-critic-jay-rayner

For the love of all that is Aubrey and Michael just give us a cabinet "grifters gotta grift" episode. Maybe listener voice memos saying "fuck!" for icing on the cake and to kill 20 minutes you won't have to record. I need to hear my angst through you.

Hope: trying to think about my place in the past, present, and future. We are not the first people to face a hard time. We can all step up to help create better lives or mitigate harm for our neighbors. We can work now to ensure younger/future generations don’t have to go face some of these challenges in the future.

A big victory to me is the FTC click-to-cancel rule to make it easier to cancel your gym memberships and other subscription services

Wellness scandal or grifty grift: Lunchly and all of the controversy around Logan Paul and Mr. Beast and KSI trying to create a “healthier” pre-made lunch box for kids

I work in public health and am inspired to see public health orgs really focus and take leadership roles in policy- advocacy, coalition building, public education, etc. Especially orgs that have historically avoided this space.

I really love Gen Z wearing pimple patches in public. So much better than the Millenial habit of trying to pop a pimple then cover it with foundation!

Also, not sure if it's wellness enough, but putting it on here since it's about demographics and a case of awful journalism: the NYT article on boomers "silently" grieving not becoming grandparents

I want to see mouth tape, cortisol face, cold plunges, and face yoga on here somewhere. Mostly because they're things I want to believe in, but feel like I shouldn't.

Biggest scandal- all the usual suspects from the podcast (RFK Jr, Dr Oz) getting cabinet nominations 🤮

Does anyone know whether Face Yoga is a real thing or not? The Instagram algorithm has decided I absolutely need it and pushes me ads about it constantly. It also thinks I need Svelte which really annoys me, both because it looks like a complete scam, and because she shares my first name, gag!!

What is giving me hope for the world right now: watching femmes around me realize that their anger is not shameful or counterproductive. Witnessing them find strength within community and are embrace resistance in small and big ways. Also the trans communities endless well of love and wisdom and resilience.

I’m still laughing at square eats

An honourable mention for all the weird ADHD hack influencer snake oil instagram. Dopamine fasting? 🫠

Hot late entry! Pete Evans and RFKjr writing a kids cookbook! https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/lifestyle/food/aussie-chef-pete-evans-releases-kids-cookbook-with-robert-f-kennedy-jr/news-story/f1343d3a29232f89b1417c77f09382cc

Yay Grifties!! I nominate: Griftiest Grifter = RFK Jr Worst Wellness Take = Oprah’s Ozempic special

That extra tough gum to help young men build stronger jawlines.

RFK Jr and this fluoride nonsense. Make America's Teeth Rot Out of Its Head Again!

What was the best wellness take from a celebrity or influencer in 2024? really struggling think if anything What was the worst wellness take from a celebrity or influencer in 2024? Those influencers promoting raw milk during bird flu outbreak in cows. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bird-flu-raw-milk-influencers-fda-warning/ What was the biggest wellness scandal of 2024? Bryan Johnson , longevity guy, injecting fat into his face because his regime made his face gaunt. What was the weirdest wellness trend of 2024? There's a strange tape your mouth shut when you sleep thing going around. Not sure if that's new or just something that has made its way to me. What was the biggest public health victory of 2024? RSV vaccine and increased availability Who was the griftiest grifter of 2024? Elle McPherson's dangerous book detailing how she chose more natural treatments for breast cancer And, because we live in hell now (again! still!), what's bringing you hope for 2025? All the trade other countries will enjoy due to Trump's trade war. Americans will pay more for everything, there will be retaliatory tariffs, but all of that will lead to opportunities for others.

“President-elect Trump will nominate Dr. Mehmet Oz to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Trump said that Oz would ‘work closely with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to take on the illness industrial complex.’”  Fuuuuuuck.

What was the best wellness take from a celebrity or influencer in 2024? K.C. Davis saying just let your kids eat the damn candy for those few days after Halloween, it's fine. And, because we live in hell now (again! still!), what's bringing you hope for 2025? Hope? In this economy? 🫠 But seeing people reaching out to strengthen community ties, gear up to protect their vulnerable neighbors, etc.

Weirdest wellness trend is this mouth tape my MIL sent me https://instagram.com/p/DAb100Us6fF/

Idc how or what category but please put Nara Smith in there

Who was the griftiest grifter of 2024? - I nominate the entirety of Trump’s nominated cabinet

Second Grade Teacher here - it sounds cliché but what is giving me hope is my class. My students love learning about activists and social justice. They have big dreams and plans for the future. I have hope in them for changing the future for the better.

This isn’t even real but just imagine for a second if Jordan Peterson somehow got added to this clusterfuck of a cabinet. It’s like a bad joke that just won’t stop

Late entry into Griftiest Grifter: Dr. Oz as CMS administrator nominee. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Biggest wellness scam: the off-brand Monjaro mills

Ilona Maher Olympic rugby player, for best take by an influencer: proudly flaunting her 200lbs and that the BMI is trash! And you can try all sorts of ways to enjoy moving your body. Even as an Olympian, you may not be a size 2 but your body is still beautiful and deserving of love.

RFK Jr for the griftiest grifter. The man scammed his way into high office.

Chronic Lyme Disease and Mold Toxicity as alternative diagnoses for chronic illnesses and/or depression: “After years of treatment and thousands of dollars not covered by insurance, we have cured your Chronic Lyme. The reason you are still having symptoms is because you now have Mold Toxicity. Lucky for you, we sell tests and treatments for that, too.” (Unbiased Science has a great episode called “In the Lyme Light” with Dr. Andrea Love.)

Are we allowed to nominate Aubrey Gordon of Your Fat Friend fame as best celebrity/influencer take, as a loophole to Aubrey and Michael of this podcast don't count as celebrities? I'm not talking about the host of this show, I'm talking about the star and subject of a documentary, that's gotta be a celebrity at this point

The worst wellness takes of 2024 are, as per usual, people saying that covid is over. And, as an extension of that, cities BANNING MASKS!!!!

What gives me hope: 2 of my doctors (gen and gynecologist) have just stopped the weighing thing at the office. I’m sure the scale is around somewhere but haven’t seen it this year

RFK Jr for sure Also, don’t know where it fits, but all the celebrities talking incessantly about cold plunge

RFK jr has to be griftiest grifter, unfortunately, since he’ll be my new boss. I work for USDA lol. Raw milk, cortisol face I vote for various things

SEED. OILS. Also, what is the deal with the influx of Lyme disease and toxic mold syndrome and why are the solutions for both of these issues all diet restriction without a mention of antibiotics?

Can you please schedule a watch party episode for this? The Belle Gibson Netflix biopic? https://youtu.be/JkpW6cPWIL8

I feel like seed oil discourse deserves an honourable mention after reaching critical mass this year. Also perhaps raw milk? That’s a perennial one, though, but I’ve seen a lot of it lately.

Weirdest trend is the anti-aging straws for sure

Lifetime achievement award for RFK, JR., anyone?

not necessarily hope, but netflix is making a belle gibson biopic staring kaitlyn dever

RFK Jr has to be the griftiest grifter in my opinion

The entire concept of the “morning shed”

Weirdest wellness trend is def either the nicotinamide ribosome tiktok ai scams or the castor oil bellybutton one!!

Biggest wellness scandal might be the blue zones debunking?

Maybe not the biggest but the weirdest wellness scandal is still the whole Nikocado Avocado surprise it was a social experiment the whole time.

The thing that's bringing me the most hope for 2025 is the fact that The Onion bought Infowars. The griftiest grinder imo should go to The New York Times for always "just asking questions"

RFK being nominated for HHS is the wellness scandal - and also RFK for griftiest grifter

Definitely RFK for griftiest grifter.

Bryan Johnson for worst wellness take.

This isn't actually wellness related, but Jamie Oliver wrote a racist children's novel that got pulled by the publisher after public outcry. Definitely look up his 'apology', you will love an hate it.

What gives me hope is Maintenance Phase!! Also, Heather Cox Richardson's daily newsletter and podcast, Letters from an American, is a bright shining light of truth and hope. Griftiest grifter - Blue Zones. Their Netflix four-parter "Live to 100" hit this year. They're so gross: they focus on nice-talk fat shaming, and also go into communities and take credit for work being done by existing orgs, often run by POC.

Votes for general annoying/bad wellness take: not everyone has imbalanced cortisol? Why is every possible symptom somehow “cortisol”

This might be completely out of left field but it would be super interesting to hear your takes on the “trad” content (using this term loosely) and how it influences/informs wellness culture in digital spaces, esp w the growing anti-fatness/conservatism in younger generation online….for example, Nara Smith’s recipes from scratch and her aesthetic/performance as a traditionally feminine wife combined w the (confirmed?) knowledge that her husband (famous model) voted for trump etc. Not sure if it’s directly what y’all are looking for but there seems to be something there that could possibly be interesting?

RFK for griftiest grifter, although honorable mention to Oprah for making an hour-long ad for Oxempic and Wegovy. Raw milk taking off as cows are getting bird flu has got to be the worst wellness trend. The Ballerina farm story taking off and exposing how untruthful and somewhat dark the homesteading content industry is I thought was a good take.

Could worst celebrity take be Lizzo’s Halloween costume? Like, let’s make more fun of the fat people that felt seen in the way she presents?

Grifties grifter: Andrew Hubeman, since a lot of his weirdness and manipulation was exposed this year.

Shout-out to all the healthcare providers that made small talk by saying they worried patients on glp-1s would "end up like" me, since I have a disabling condition that can very rarely be a side effect of that drug. This condition can also be a complication of under treated diabetes, so....fun.

Adding to the votes for weirdest wellness trends: anti-aging products (those weird straws, “morning sheds”, etc), things like cortisol face or dopamine fasting, raw milk???, seed oils being bad for some reason. also those videos of women showing their face during their luteal phase vs other points in their cycle… like maybe it’s just me but I never see much of a difference 😬

i think what's giving me hope right now is people's interest in getting involved in mutual aid and organizing. theres a mutual aid organization near me that got their most volunteers ever the week after the election, i think people are starting to realize they cant put their faith into national politics more than their own communities

RFK Jr. Griftiest grifter. I can’t be the only one. He went from independent to begging to be a part of the democratic campaign then going and kissing Trump’s ass for the power to destroy our public health institutions, he’s saying things like let’s take 8 years off from infectious disease work… so he might just be the grifter of the next decade.

RFK Jr. for griftiest grifter and raw milk for weirdest health trend!

What about that girl who was taking 40 supplements and drinking a bunch of unpasteurized milk?

Not a nomination, just a thank you for the first explosive belly laugh I’ve had since the election #fucksawincident

RFK Jr., Raw milk influencers, and MAGA for all categories 😡🖕😭

Worst Wellness Take goes to Scott Galloway on Pivot Podcast and then every single thing he has said since: GLP-1 drugs are the most importantly technology ever. TW: hate for fat prime and general asshattery https://www.instagram.com/profgalloway/reel/C_J-TkbA5gF/

The Onion buying Info Wars is the thing that gives me hope. And delight. And that they are shutting down shady supplement sales immediately.

I think the weirdest trend is the cold plunge! I've been seeing this advertised a lot more, and a lot of celebrities/influencers posting videos of themselves doing this. Maybe there are some benefits? But spraying cold water on yourself isn't really a new thing. It reminds me of that line of thinking that you have to be suffering in some way in order to be "healthy."

Honestly, you might just want to give RFK Jr. a Lifetime Achievement Award so he doesn't dominate all the categories.

Biggest wellness scandal is the USDA’s handling of bird flu… completely failing to get a grip on it bc yay ag money

need something on Raw Milk trend for sure

I work in biotech so the specters of RFK and Ramaswamy have been haunting me for awhile. Beyond RFKs absolutely whackadoo ideas about health and what health means, if he actually has the impact he wants in HHS and FDA we're in for a WILD ride of deregulations and OVER-regulations. A lot bad can be said about pharma, biotech and FDA but it's really scary to think that with men like RFK, Ramaswamy and Trump at the helm we could basically be doing away with clinical trials, regulatory reviews and best practices for keeping people safe. Trump tried to push a "right to try" law in his first admin so you could get access to non-commercialized drugs even if they hadn't been proven to work and the safety hadn't been confirmed. If this goes forward it basically delegitimizes the entire scientific process. It puts all the responsibility for running safe, effective trials on the companies and we all know what happens when you trust big business to just "do what's right." This honestly scares me so much more than any of the other crazy stuff I'm hearning.

Paul Saladino for griftiest grifter and biggest scandal because the “Carnivore MD” quit the carnivore diet. Maybe the carnivore diet for weirdest trend also. I humbly request a full episode about this guy 🙏

Biggest Wellness Scandal - RFK.Jr as part of the incoming Trump administration. Also for Griftiest Grifter.

Not sure if he's been mentioned but I think Ben Carpenter is a pretty positive wellness influencer. Consistently talks aboutbweight stigma in the fitness industry, how fat loss is not easy and doesn't have to be everyone's goal, breaks down research into health & weight loss for a very broad audience, uses a platform of being a very conventionally "fit", "healthy", "attractive" straight white man to do it. I haven't read his book, but his social media presence seems pretty legit.

Dr Michael Mosley was an interesting person in this space, even before his death while on holiday in June. On another note, I’m half expecting to see Pete Evans pop up in the Trump administration…

I mean RFK jr has gotta be king grifter. Grifted his way to the top. weirdest wellness trend: whatever the tradwives are hawking its wild

Rfk wanting to send people on Adderal and the like to “camps”. Like there’s not enough stigma against ADHD meds already

Griftiest grifter has to be the orange umpa lumps surely???

weirdest wellness: running snail mucin on your face. TBH I don't know too much about it but it gives me the willys.

RFK Jr for griftiest grifter. He's made it all the way to Secratary of health. He won the conspiracy game.

Who was the griftiest grifter of 2024? This has to be RFK Jr. Look where he is now ffs.

Might be too niche but I’ll nominate Trixie Mattel for best wellness take! They have been very open about having a terrible year in terms of physical and mental health, which has caused big weight loss (to be clear, they were never fat). Got a lot of ozempic accusations and said this about it: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/hpy8xm_X__M

weirdest wellness trend: beef tallow (for skin care???) and the raw milk obsessed wellness moms (literally WHY). idk who told them drinking unfiltered milk and pus was good for them (and not a major health risk!!!) but they are the ultimate grifter for sure

Okay nom for weirdest wellness trend (love everything in here so far): Colostrum, specifically the brand Armra. I actually cannot figure out what exactly the “benefits” are!! Every explanation is vague o’clock and very Moon Dusty. Plus it is $100 a jar. Bananapants.

weirdest wellness trend might be the straws that dont give you wrinkles as well as every other way you can avoid moving your face at all

Because RFK is sortof a category all his own, I’m thinking maybe griftiest grifter is Eli Lilly. There’s gotta be something sinister afoot (capitalism + white supremacy + fatphobia to name a few, but I’m after Michael Hobbes specifics 😂) when a pharmaceutical company gets hundreds of thousands of people onto a GLP-1 compounded and yet to be approved by the FDA (??) for weight loss and then has a shortage followed by a drastic increase in prices making it largely unavailable under most insurance companies. I fear they’re making an extraordinary amount of money on a class of drugs that we don’t know the long term implications of (beyond their support and necessity for folks with diabetes)! A grift I think!!

Weirdest Wellness Trend; Idk if I'm stretching ''wellness'' (but hey everyone does) but... the ''morning sheds''?? Where content creators show you all the stuff they go to sleep with and have to take off in the morning... One layer of eye patches, a mask, a lip mask, a bandana, one layer of cream, I... I'm scared.

Weirdest Wellness Trend: "Raw-dogging." Men going through airplane flights with no music, no movies, no food, and no sleep, no phones. They just stare ahead. Then they post their records on social media. They claim that it's like meditation, or that it helps them practice self-control. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y83kj3wg2o

Griftiest Grifters: Malcolm & Simone Collins, the "hipster eugenicists/pro-natalists." https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/may/25/american-pronatalists-malcolm-and-simone-collins The wife ran as a Republican for her state's legislature. They want voting rights to be granted according to the citizen's "value to society." https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/03/simone-collins-pronatalist-pennsylvania-candidate

Worst Wellness Take: Right-wing politicians claiming that we need to ban abortion and birth control because not enough teens are getting pregnant and its bringing birth rates down.

Weirdest Wellness Trend: anything collagen-related. Eating it, putting it on your face, etc. It freaks me out! It’s giving Cruella De Vil

The obsession with raw milk is just completely insane to me. Louis Pasteur is arguably the most famous scientist in American zeitgeist after Einstein and Curie and yet we're throwing away one of the greatest public health findings of the last 150 years! Truly pathetic

what’s giving me hope right now is how many people around me seem to be feeling a renewed desire to get involved in their communities, and how eager the people around me are to give to others right now.

The Lumen device that measures the C02 in your breath and tell you if you’re “running on fat or carbs” should be on this list somewhere

Kia ora from Aotearoa (New Zealand) (if you want help with pronunciation I will literally jump on a Zoom call because I desperately need Māori to be spoken even slightly better 😂🥲 But AND We have a Population of 5 million ish. But and, recently Hana-Rawhiti, the Youngest elected MP in Parliaments history- who has been powerful and bold in all of her work- has had a single video amass 250 million views in like, 2 or 3 days? [She was performing a Haka whilst ripping up Acts "Treaty Principles Bill" (a unilateral rewrite of a contractual constitutional document claiming *"equality"* (already guaranteed in Te Tiriti) whilst stripping the indigenous population of their rights to their land/sea/rivers/ecosystems/(but also, language/cultural custom, as protected Taonga (best translated as treasure) in Te Tiriti). Haka and Waitata (songs, and chants,) and Karakia/prayer, are all part of Māori Tikanga/due process-- so within cultural and constitutional context of Aotearoa, it makes sense these make their way into the Most Important Collective Decisions and Due Process. Our very 'protective of their Whitness' (but insistent they're "not racist") current majority in Government are VERY SAD, We, ( -Tangata Whenua and Tangata Tiriti- the people of this land and those who honour Te Tiriti), are invigorated and activated Tied into indigenous rights, is advocating for a society that values people (meaning even more accessible health care; better and stronger community services; better action of climate justice and generally a more Health Promoting Society. So Hana-Rawhiti and her quarter of a billion views (on one video on one platform), from a country of five million with people demanding justice, that's what gives me Hope.

Worst wellness take from a celebrity or influencer: Taika Waititi doing an ad for prenuvo preventative MRIs

I think this might be biggest scandal (???) but also I am fully mystified by the seed oil thing. This is also hyper local - there are flyers all over Greenwich Village in NYC declaring that Carbone (the most expensive Italian American restaurant on earth) puts seed oil in their spicy rigatoni. Someone is big mad about this. Wild if true.

What's giving me hope for 2025 - women getting accurate info on birth control options as healthcare

Griftiest Grifter: RFK Jr

Biggest success this year has a general reduction of and thoughtfulness toward alcohol consumption. Other fun beverage options!

I’m not sure she’s famous enough to be called a celebrity or an influencer but for one of the positive awards you might want to highlight Summer Lucille who owns Juice Body Goddess clothing shop. The store sells size 12 plus only and she has amazing videos with her customers showing them how beautiful they are, especially teen girls buying prom dresses. She’s on insta at juicebodygoddess2.0 and the website is https://juicybodygoddess.com/

You’re probably sick of talking about him - but RFK has to the the griftiest grifter of all time. It’s a tough race for worst wellness take - though 3 & 4 are just pure silly. Raw milk is good for you. Sun cream causes cancer. Dopamine fasting. Fruit makes you store fat. Hydrogen water.

Awful trend: "recovery" eating disorder influecers promoting coaching services while still actively having an eating disorder

Griftiest grifter has got to be RFK Jr. And I’m hopeful about the power of local community to ripple out into larger scale social change!

Griftiest grifter: Bryan Johnson (anti aging billionaire)

Weirdest wellness trend: Those weird overnight beauty rituals which include those jaw guards, face masks and people taping their mouths shut.

Fart walk Lady. She seems innocuous but I genuinely would not tell if her account was serious.

Weirdest: maybe that magnesium is now supposed to fix everything.

Griftiest grifter: Donald Trump

At one point I noticed a trend of videos and comments wherein straight men thought it was "gay" to wash their butts. As a woman who has dated some trash men, this was unfortunately not surprising.

Oh something I forgot in my comment but may be too dark for this show, for ME the biggest public health scandal of the year is the genocide 👏 in 👏 the Middle East 👏 👏 and especially the polio outbreak in Gaza, and the fact that Israel is not allowing any sort of organized vaccination effort or humanitarian pause. I think this will be the public health issue with the most lasting consequences as polio regains a foothold in the region (discounting like, the American election, which is probably too broad to win a category lol).

Does the bear or the whale count as a wellness scandal?? RFK has to be griftiest grifter for me. As far as worst wellness trend, I think it has to be the resurgence of 90s pro-ana and heroin chic style aesthetic amongst teens and young adults on TikTok. Creators like liv Schmidt have an enormous audience where they repackage disordered eating and fully ED behaviors into a 2024 acceptable form, and once again tell young women that the most important thing they can achieve is thinness. It’s really cancerous bringing this back, especially at a time when misogyny and the demonization of poc (and esp woc) is culturally ascendant. …. On a much lighter note, I agree with everyone saying night mouth taping as weirdest lol.

Weirdest Trend: mouth taping while sleeping?! It’s been all over TikTok

Worst take: “Raw milk is better for you!”

Public health victory: buffer zones around abortion clinics here in the UK, to prevent the harassment of people accessing abortions or working at abortion clinics 🥳 https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62m4g2drgdo.amp

Biggest public health victory: Harris normalizing the language around abortion. When H. Clinton spoke of it frankly during the 2016 debates it was so surprising! And how Harris and folks campaigning for her reset the conversation has been amazing. It didn't' result in all the wins that she should have gotten but it did help with local initiatives that matter to the people it needs to matter to.

Weirdest wellness trend: This is very of-my-current-worldview but all the secondary markets to treat symptoms of perimenopause & menopause. There's at least a half dozen online services that will have you meet with a doc online, even have blood labs taken and reviewed, and then do prescriptions/supplies for hormones. This is filling the huge void between what women in this age range, 30-60, need and what they are able to access. Gen X women are super loud about this right now because we know how to use the internet and we are running companies and participating heavily in the workforce while caring for children and parents and....healthcare is not ready to support us in staying viable. So, you've got all these companies and they very much fit into a weird niche/loophole/black market?? and I don't know what to think about it.

Have to agree with others about the mouth tape for weird trends.

Best wellness take from a celebrity may go to Pamela Anderson. Her embrace of aging has been refreshing.

I mean, you're doomed to talk about RFK, Jr. until the end of time anyway, but dude just grifted himself into a cabinet post, so he's gotta win Griftiest Grifter. For weirdest wellness trend? Well, he promotes raw milk, but I'm way more interested in diving into the crazy anti-fluoride nonsense that he's revived. Weaker Teeth 2024!

Water grifts. My mom is obsessed with Gatorade water. I told her she could just add a pinch of salt to her tap water

Raw milk. This one really blows my mind. When I lived in he Northeast, I thought organic milk always lasted longer. When I moved across the country, I learned that it was just a regional difference in consumer preference (or law?). The organic milk I bought in the NE happened to always be ULTRA pasteurized. I went on a whole deep dive and realized the real factor in my milks shelf life was making sure it was Ultra pasteurized. Also there are interesting subtleties in the grades of pasteurization. I'll never forget that my family's good friend, a dairy farmer in upstate New York who drank raw milk daily, was one of the few ppl who didn't get violently ill at a state fair wherein the water was contaminated with sewage. I think ya'll even talked about it on the show once. You can't just suddenly drink raw milk and not expect to get horribly horribly ill

Not to force Michael into podcast crossover territory, but literally anything Eric Adams has said in the past year. . . literally anything

Mouth taping for sleeping. This seems to be mostly popular with men. Also cold plunging. I fully believe in the effects of the mammalian dive reflex but these claims seem WAY overblown. Plus I really don't think most people are sufficiently cleaning those tubs. Who knows what horrors are growing in there!

This one is maybe a little old but the idea behind Frownies -- immobilizing facial muscles (mainly forehead and eyebrows) overnight using tapes. I think the idea is that you "train" yourself not to use those muscles, thereby getting the effect of Botox. Allegedly

Weirdest trend has gotta be the “morning shed”

This is wellness-adjacent but the trend of pushing 8 year olds to buy expensive facial creams is very grifty. Plus these products are often even bad for their young skin!

RFK Jr. for griftiest grifter, hands down.

I feel like there has to be some mention of that rich guy who thinks he's aging backwards, but is really just a well-moisturized vampire with bad makeup.

Griftiest grifter has GOTTA BE that person on twitter (maia poet) claiming hamas made them detransition. begging her to just pick a struggle

The biggest giggle came from CarnivoreMD Paul Saladino (griftiest grifter? Tough battle) saying that actually he had to stop eating that way because he became so sick

Maybe it was more of a 2023 thing but all this talk of “detoxing” and “alkaline.” There is a hilarious interview with Miranda kerr where she talks about what she eats and the amount of buzz words she mentions, she drinks a smoothie that helps with “detoxing from metals” like wtf

“How gen X are getting their teenage bodies back 💪🏼😍” adds. Like… as adults, let’s not aspire to look like minors! And more importantly, the implication that teenagers’ bodies are the ideal is absolutely wild

griftiest grifter: RFK Because he's wormed his way into a fascist administration and freaks are celebrating it. Pun intended.

Senator Ron Johnson’s roundtable discussion on American health and nutrition for the biggest wellness scandal or griftiest grifter. The panel included friends of the pod Jordan Peterson and Jillian Michaels among other top tier wellness grifters.

Weirdest wellness take: castor oil in the belly button: https://www.womenshealthmag.com/health/a61987741/castor-oil-belly-button/

worst wellness take: saying sunscreen causes cancer

Biggest public health win: declining rates of STIs! Giving my hope: I recently learned that from 2000 to 2016, the life expectancy for someone living with HIV went from 58 to 77. That is HUGE! I learned this at a talk where a researcher was advocating for more research on HIV and menopause because we have a generation of PLWH who are reliably living long enough to go through menopause.

Public health win (maybe not the biggest, but close to my heart): Providence will be opening up the first state sanctioned* overdose prevention center in the US, expected to open this year (.. pending them finishing up some construction) *NYC of course has one, and those badasses just WENT FOR IT. In Providence, they got unanimous approval from the city council.

My Griftiest grifter nominees would be RFK jr. and Bryan Johnson of project blueprint.

weirdest wellness trend: mouth tape while you sleep

Elon Musk has to be in there somewhere. I just want to hear Mike rant about him. I’d feel so seen. ❤️

My sibling who is a self-appointed 'life coach' and 'spiritual advisor' is hawking the AO Scan Technology by Solex and it claims to "use delicate bio-frequencies and electromagnetic signals to communicate with the body" and read these frequencies to diagnose diseases or illness, and also alter these frequencies to restore health and balance...mmmkay. Their website copy randomly references Tesla and Einstein, so, you know its a total scam. Also an MLM, no shock there.

Biggest public health victory nominee - U.S. Surgeon General's Advisory on the Public Health Crisis of Firearm Violence in the United States

I'm not sure if it's a weird or bad trend: Eat 30 different plants a week. (I mean, sure, I'm a fan of variety). But it's pushed by grifty Tim Spector...apparently it will do amazing things for your gut microbiota, but it's just another thing for people to fetishize and worry about when eating.

Giving me hope: Always and forever Adrienne Marie Brown. Also the women in perimenopause that are talking about it in a sane way and pushing for more research and education about women's health. Basically it is always WOMEN giving me hope.

Griftiest Grifter has got to be the entire Trump Administration.

Thinking RFK is going to "save us" has got to be the weirdest wellness trend in 2024.

Bringing hope for 2025: There's been a dramatic shift in the way media is covering the reasons for being fat as much more complex and not because of personal failing. I'm not trying to say we're all the way there (open a youtube comments section and find out), but there has been a noticeable improvement in the last 1-2 years and it gives me hope that we'll continue to move in a positive direction.

Worst Wellness take: Joe Wicks (The Body Coach - UK influencer) Ultra-processed food causes ADHD 😱

maybe a leap but, Chappell Roan for Best Celebrity Wellness Take! public boundary setting and standing up for herself in the most anti-PR ways

Biggest public heath victory: in Canada we got universal dental care for people over the age of 65 and under the age of 18 (I think there are other qualifications as well). It doesn’t cover everything but 1 million people have now received dental insurance!

I don't know if it's the weirdest, but hashtag Floortime on TikTok is pretty weird.

Griftiest Grifter: RF Kennedy. OMG. Health-related grifter, I mean, otherwise I'd nominate the whole incoming admin.

Worst wellness take: the return of anorexia (thin-spiration) on tiktok, couched in therapy speak. There's one vid that was going around a couple of weeks ago where the general, repeated mantra was "i have the rest of my life to eat, today it makes me feel good to be..." I can't remember which word she used. Trim? Slender? It was not the word thin, and it had a slight archaic flavor to it.

And cheesy as hell, but you guys and these comments give me hope

Weirdest wellness trend: dopamine fasting, seriously don’t think I’d survive a week (don’t know if this is actually new, I’ve just recently heard about it though, so is new in my life)

It’s not entirely new this year, but the “protein everything” thing seems to be at a new level. Protein ice cream, protein cookies, protein muffins, and maybe most horrific, protein Diet Coke??? People have become obsessed with protein: we’ve demonized carbohydrates to high heaven (the human metabolism requires carbs as our main energy source to function, our brains require sugar) and glorified high-protein as some kind of “healthy alternative” to a “high carb” (aka, normal) diet. Too much protein - which is what you’ll get if you’re adding 20 grams of protein to every snack, meal, drink, etc - can be brutal on your kidneys. Just eat normal ice cream! You’ll be fine!

Weirdest wellness trend: Raw milk, waterbottles that makes your water more hydrating because apparently normal water doesn't hydrate you?

Worst wellness take was by the UK government, specifically Wes Streeting, that the unemployed should be given ozempic as presumably they were too fat to get a job. He's also quite prepared to stop trans healthcare and turn our NHS into a US style system which will mean a few people make huge profits. I hate him.

Weirdest - all the anti-aging/wrinkle products that people on tiktok wear to bed (lip tape, jaw sling, etc)

Weirdest Wellness Trend: "Morning Kick" - a supplement blend from Chuck Norris. The ad was on the radio at work so many g-d times that I eventually made a transcription (Apologies for the length): Narrator: It’s common knowledge that after age 30 our metabolism changes. We have less energy and gain weight easier. There’s a way to feel better, not in years or months but sometimes in just days. Chuck Norris: I’m Chuck Norris. I tried everything. Working with a team of health experts, we came up with Morning Kick. Morning Kick is a revolutionary new formula that combines all my favorite supplements into one daily drink. Narrator: Morning Kick has probiotics to help you lose weight. Prebiotics for digestion. Superfoods for muscles and joints. And powerful anti-aging supplements. It’ll help you feel youthful, energized, and helps manage stress. Chuck Norris: I look and feel better than I have in years. Narrator: Go to Roundhouse Provisions dot com, use code support, or text support to five eleven five eleven and claim 40% off. *roundhouse kick sound effect* Roundhouse Provisions dot com, code support. Chuck Norris: Every purchase comes with our 90-day money-back guarantee. You can be feeling these changes within just a couple of days. Narrator: Text support to five eleven five eleven. *then, in a fast voice:* [these statements have not been evaluated by the FDA, etc.]

Griftiest Grifter: it would have been JD Vance. Of course, now Matt Gaetz’ stock is rising. May I nominate the entire Trump Administration?

Worst Wellness Take: I literally just watched an episode of Bill Mohr (Mahr?) on which he had an actual medical doctor talking about how weight alone is not the best predictor of health (yay!) and Chris Cuomo talking about how we allow way too many additives and pestacides in/on our food that Europe has banned and that maybe that has negative health effects, but Bill just would not listen to either of them and kept saying that people just need to stop eating McDonalds. Same episode he went on a trans men in girls sports rant and a rant about how we dont need flouride in our water.

Best Celebrity Wellness Take: Gracie Gold's Outofshapeworthlessloser. It's her memoire about navigating the senior competitive figure skating world and how that led to addiction and ED for her. She goes in really hard on the figure skating culture and how there are very few safeguards in place in the sport to protect their skaters against EDs (and they they are fairly normalized), SA, and verbal abuse. SafeSport is making headway in this area, but its slow and some in places of power within the ISU and USFS are resistant to change. She also takes Tara Lapinski to task for her commentary which I am always here for :)

I'm not sure which category to put this in because I think you could find a tie in for every category. Maybe it could be a whole episode. But, SEED OIL PANIC

Weirdest wellness take: the whole cortisol trend by far

worst wellness take from a celebrity or influencer: I only saw a brief clip so I THINK an influencer said this but I'm not 100% sure. In the Jubilee """debate""" about fatness, some guy on the anti-fat side said something along the lines of "you live in a safe, developed country while people are starving to death in Gaza -- you have no excuse to still be fat" or something like that and it was one of the most unhinged comments I have ever heard

Weirdest: freaking out about cortisol

Weirdest trend: perineum sunning, which I have recently heard mentored by multiple people. So I had to look into it, and it is apparently A Thing.

I think the weirdest trend is those people who film themselves in the actual store reading all the ingredients in yoghurt or whatever. It’s such a strange thing to do and I always imagine a line of people tapping their feet waiting to get their yoghurt while this dbag is setting up a tripod

Ooh! Ooh! 'Turkey teeth' and 'turkey hair' in the UK. The advertisements on the London tube network alone for flying to Turkey and getting cosmetic dentistry and hair transplants are bananas.

Biggest public health victory: in the UK disposable vapes are set to be banned shortly. The amount of literal kids huffing on cherry ice blast plastic is out of control.

Weirdest wellness trend: this year (or this month) we’re fat because we’ve got high cortisol. Apparently my cortisol is high because I go to bed late/early, get up late/early, eat too much/too little, move too much/too little and god knows what else all at once! Just leave my chemicals alone!

Griftiest grifter: the Cass Report. Also Wes Streeting.

Weirdest health trend: Dopamine fasting or morning shed

Griftiest Grifter - professor Tim Spector and The Zoe App (sorry Mike - there’s a £300 poop test involved)

For What’s Giving me Hope for 2025 - The Onion buying Infowars (with the help of the Sandy Hook families) has brought me genuine joy and hope for the future.

Biggest public health victory of 2024: France adding the right to abortion to its Constitution

Weirdest wellness trend: “The Dopamine Diet” trend, and the book “Dopamine Nation” by Dr. Anna Lembke

Weird trend: girl dinner.

I feel like RFK needs to win something, I'm just not sure which category...

Weirdest thing - eneagic water with it's extra hydrogen.....

Biggest welness scandal: "The Ice Man" Wim Hof (known for his promotion of ice baths and breathing techniques, and popular among celebs) turns out to have been an abusive husband/father. It was a huge scandal here in the Netherlands. A planned biographical movie with Joseph Fiennes has stopped production because of it. Wim Hof is a really weird guy in general. He's said that that he gave himself enemas in a fountain at a public park...

Griftiest grifter: trad wives. Besides pushing regular right wing propaganda, they also glorify this “natural is better,” “processed food/modernity is ruining our kids,” pseudoscience that tricks wellness leaning people into conservatism

Nicole Sachs, who reckons chronic pain is caused by trauma and can be "cured" with cbt or some shit. She has a book coming out in 2025 that seems dangerous to me. Rfk is a dangerous crank, but he's not a grifter and I think it doesn't serve us well to call everyone with harmful beliefs a grifter. Ana Kasparian - now there's a grifter.

I'm not sure RFK counts as a grifter because I get the impression he actually believes it

Scandal or weird trend - Kate Middleton conspiracy theories

Weirdest trend: Red Light therapy, Biggest victory: decline in STDs like syphilis for the first time in years, biggest scandal: whooping cough coming back with a vengeance, griftiest grifter: RFK JR

Weirdest wellness trend: extreme anti-aging and “morning shed.” Young women taping their faces and mouths, spending hundreds/thousands of dollars to try to prevent wrinkles. Those that peddle it should be considered a collective griftiest grifter

Oh god I just remembered Mewing which is pointless and crazy but also somehow incel adjacent so it is definitely the worst.

What's bringing you hope for 2025? Thanks to the Self-Determination Act, which went into effect this month, trans folks in Germany can finally change their gender entry and first name by simply DECLARING it—huzzah!—instead of going through a jury. Despite the rise of right-wing extremism and transphobia in Germany, this important milestone is something I am celebrating with my whole heart. There will be so much joy in 2025 because of it. I can’t wait to see so many queer folk be able to step into their truth without having to navigate the massive hurdle of a long, expensive and often dehumanizing judicial process.

Public health victory: John Green's campaign in increasing access to tuberculosis treatment and tests in developing countries

Grifter of the year- RFKjr

Weirdest: morning shed

Tradwives are the weirdest Wellness-adjacent trend ( the homemade SPF sent me reeling) but props to the anti seed oil guys for getting so worked up and passionately upset over pure bollocks.

Weirdest wellness trend: morning and evening skincare routines on TikTok

Biggest win is the boycat app 🐈 partnering with pro-Palestine groups to make it easy to boycott companies complicit in gen*cide. There's no room for wellness when there's ethnic cleansing happening

Leana wen for worst wellness take: her WaPo piece saying we need to “reexamine” fluoride

It feels like everyone talks about infrared light like it’s magic and will cure anything.

Worst wellness take: Influencers making crappy products and pretending they're healthy and also primarily marketing them to children - Lunchly, Prime, Feastables, mid-day squares, joyride sweets, myna snacks.

RFK jr is the griftiest grifter, obvs

Bad wellness takes I'd like to see covered as a Griftie, the seed oil thing, overblown lead in food scares, and/or raw milk.

Biggest public health victory: Medicare negotiating prices for the first 10 drugs ever in American history. This is huge for so many reasons but fundamentally we can never have universal health care if shit is too expensive. No longer kneecapping the government so they can't negotiate and set prices is a massive step that deserves more attention. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/08/15/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-announces-new-lower-prices-for-first-ten-drugs-selected-for-medicare-price-negotiation-to-lower-costs-for-millions-of-americans/ Weirdest wellness trend: Red light therapy. Especially those machines that are like whole ass cart setups that some people casually have in their homes. People's fear of the aesthetics of aging is wild.

Rfk jr for sure griftiest grift (honorable mention to Nara Smith and the whole tradwife/homemade/all natural nonsense) Ilona Mahr for best! Weird trend: damn cortisol levels or younger kids doing extensive skincare

Biggest Wellness Scandal - McDonalds e coli outbreak

Worst wellness outcome is the need for yet ANOTHER RFK EPISODE!!!

Weirdest wellness trend - mouth taping

I don't know if it's a wellness take as such, but best take by a celebrity; Nicola Coughlan on being told she's brave for doing a nude scene (something the male leads have never been told I'm sure) responded "You know it is hard because I think women with my body type, women with perfect breasts, we do not see ourselves on screen enough, I am very proud as a member of the perfect breast community, I hope you enjoy seeing them". There was so much discourse about her being the romantic lead as a 'plus size' woman, when she's mostly actually just quite short - I loved this response from her.

Weirdest wellness trend: sunning your butthole

Best: everything Ilona Maher has done on Dancing with the Stars!

Weirdest - this is maybe too niche, but I keep getting targeted ads about structured vs. unstructured water, and having to re-structure water that becomes unstructured in your pipes by ... vortexing it to give it structure again (i.e., sending through a funnel to make a lil water tornado, as far as I can tell)??

Biggest wellness scandal: Blue Zones!!!

Biggest victory: Scottish study regarding ZERO cervical cancer cases post HPV vaccine. (P.S. I love this podcast the mostest)

Public health victory: the American Academy of Pediatrics reversing its recommendations to avoid peanuts to prevent allergic reactions. Those recommendations caused the peanut allergy explosion in the 2000’s. Immunologists and pediatricians who did not follow the guidelines saw almost no peanut allergies in patients. Other countries don’t have peanut allergies.

Weirdest: the anti-seed oil conspiracy theorists. It is BAFFLING. Goes hand in hand with smearing beef tallow on your face, though, I guess. If you don't use seed oil in cooking, that kind of just leaves animal fat

Weirdest wellness trend of 2024: “full body” deodorant just giving people one more thing to feel needlessly self-conscious about — and spend more money trying to “fix” And if I hear that Lume founder talk about her asshole one more time…

Worst wellness take: Donald Trump appointing RFK to lead the Dept. of Health & Human Services. Weird wellness trend: cycle syncing / seed cycling

Can we talk about the weird trend of celebrities using hyperbaric chambers for no apparent reason?

Biggest public health success story: states voting to enshrine protection for abortion, especially red states, like Missouri.

Weirdest Wellness Trend: the slew of Instagram ladies talking about lowering cortisol levels. Grittiest grifter: (this might be too niche) but the “taking birth control just ‘covers up’ PCOS; it doesn’t ‘treat’ it; try our ‘all natural’ product instead” crowd

Rfk Jr for biggest grifter. Bone broth for your skin and wellness for most annoying fad.

Weirdest wellness trends of 2024: 1. "Dopamine fasting" for ADHD (shows up on my socials every single day, it's ridiculous). 2. Somatic exercises for weight loss.

I nominate rfk for all categories

Worst wellness take: Gabrielle Lyon who said that walking “isn’t exercise”. (Viral on TikTok and 2 weeks later on Reels) Mostly this was nuts because it allowed a ton of icky people to come out of the woodwork to say “I’ve been saying this!” Also, she’s a huge proponent of protein protein protein, which is getting WILDLY out of hand.

Best Celebrity: Ilona Mahr for sure. 👏 Worst celebrity/ also weird: Gwyneth Paltrow and the rectal therapy. But also those unwrapping things on TikTok freak me out. (I feel like raw milk and seed oil b.s. has been around a few times. These trends are so strange!) Weirdest Trend: Cicada sound therapy, claiming healing benefits from insect noises. Biggest public health victory: the Integrate Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder Treatment into Primary Care in community health centers. Hope in 2025 is that it’s more clear than ever how important it is to be involved and connected with your community. Lets be kind to each other.

weirdest take- raw milk and the people defending it saying “you just have to boil it first”

If you combine the amount of money burned, climate burned, work stolen, and time wasted by the grift, and multiply by the totally undeserved credulity given to the grift it by mainstream institutions, it's hard to think of a griftier grifter than Sam Altman and the AI billionaire crew right now. (Ed Zitron is pretty good at running down the many levels of grift going on.)

Weirdest: the raw milk thing. I cannot

RFK Jr has to be the griftiest grifter, right?

Rfk jr

One thing bringing me hope: we still had some states overturning blanket abortion bans, including Missouri, where I live

Beef tallow as skin care has to be among the weirdest wellness trends

Worst celeb wellness take/grifter behavior is Kourtney Kardashian's Lemme brand GLP-1 daily supplement marketed as a "natural alternative" to Ozempic...

For grifties grifter is has to be RFK Jr

I mean you could just talk about RFK Jr for the entire episode and I feel like we’d all be satisfied. Additionally, the rising popularity of raw milk should absolutely be considered for something. Especially with the fact that people who buy it are now saying that they’re boiling it before consumption, which is essentially doing the same thing as pasteurizing, but destroying the nutrients along the way.

Biggest public health victory: The Onion taking over Infowars so Alex Jones can no longer peddle his shitty dietary supplements and bad takes!!

Griftiest RFK’s brain worm

I think RFK Jr isn't griftiest grifter but he should get a Lifetime Achievement Award even if his nomination (pls) is sunk

RFK Jr. Period.

Weirdest wellness trend: slugging.. (?)I’m not sure I even now entirely understand what it is. Goes hand in hand with “morning shed”. Every day we venture further into dystopia

Best wellness take by a celeb/influencer (or at least honorable mention). When Ilona Maher responded to a comment about her BMI with: "Yeah, I do have a BMI of 30. I am considered overweight. But alas, I'm going to the Olympics and you're not"

Celebrity buccal fat removal

Griftiest Grifter has to be RFK Jr, right?!

RFK Jr must win giftiest grifter.

Biggest public health victory - evidence that HPV vaccines are basically eliminating cervical cancer.

What’s bringing hope for 2025 - the abortion protecting ballot initiatives that passed at the state level (including in states that went red)

What brings me hope - staying involved and getting more involved in local activism, and how I see more people doing so. We all have to play our part, big or small, in the future we want. And we need to start today.

weirdest wellness trend: raw dairy, or the "vabbing" thing that got spread around by all the crunchy wellness grifters

Bringing hope for 2025 - think small and build a community around you

Worst wellness take by a celebrity- Elle macpherson and her approach to treating her breast cancer (and the suspicion that she’s left some conventional treatment out of her story). Plenty of pts have surgery to remove tumour then decline chemo. It works out for some of them

A couple of nominations for biggest wellness scandal from the UK: 1. The health secretary Wes Streeting making a deal with Lilley to test weight loss drug on unemployed people. https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2024/oct/20/wes-streeting-denies-dystopian-future-over-weight-loss-jabs-for-jobless 2. Everything that has happened around trans healthcare since the publication of the Cass Report, to the ‘emergency’ ban on puberty blockers, to GPs suddenly refusing to keep prescribing hormones to trans patients.

Hope for 2025: Trump making multiple "jokes" about how he can't get rid of Elon. I think the self-professed "First Buddy" is already on his way out, and if the last administration is anything to go by, backstabbing will continue to be a theme here and hopefully prevent some of the biggest damage to the country

Infamous grifter (and somehow licensed physician?) Leana Wen defending anti-fluoride conspiracy theorist and total nutjob RFK, Jr. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/11/12/fluoride-water-rfk-jr-trump-public-health/?utm_campaign=morning_rounds&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--zeau6dzHsME-3wEQCBanX0DXJjfNksJsu1xnZmILLLPESqM8iPC78nQewe1S1rtxIYkysPcWuFDeliIhMHO9l4430_Q&_hsmi=333646042&utm_content=333646042&utm_source=hs_email

My vote goes to Jonathan Van Ness for breath of fresh air of 2024. Hopeful, playful, sincere and gorgeous

griftiest grifter= trumps entire cabinet

Biggest grifter had to be that Bryan Johnson/reverse aging guy

What was the worst wellness take from a celebrity or influencer in 2024? Emily Oster defending raw milk. As an infectious disease epidemiologist, the US could arguably stand to review some of our pasteurization requirements, e.g. not allowing the import of cheeses made with unpasteurized milk. However, there is no good reason to generally allow the sale of unpasteurized milk, and a whole lot of good reasons for pasteurization -- like tuberculosis. If we had much higher standards for commercial dairies, we could maybe consider it, but that isn't going to happen any time soon.

U.K. here….Joe Wicks… nuff said?!

Weirdest Wellness Trend: castor oil in your belly button for improved digestion

My cousin lives near Buffalo. After the election, he got a notice from the town that they're going to start putting fluoride in the water 😂

Biggest public health victory: acknowledging menopause is a thing!

Biggest wellness grifter gotta be RFK.

Weirdest wellness trend is cortisol face. What? Cortisol is apparently changing my face?

weirdest wellness trend i saw: equine therapy where someone is like on a massage table and horses just stand near them???

What's bringing me hope: The Onion buying Infowars.

RFK for all of the worsts.

Bringing me hope: the continued existence of Mask Blocs and other mutual aid orgs for covid protection. Best wellness take: The Onion buying Infowars, including his grifty supplements. Public health victory: flu shots becoming 3-strain instead of 4 (thus, a simpler manufacturing process & ability to produce more doses) because early covid protections caused a strain to die off! Weirdest/worst wellness trend: all the anti-glyphosate crusaders. Moms Across America is a scourge. Griftiest Grifter: Food Babe. I considered RFK, but really the man deserves a whole ass lifetime achievement award. Give the worm a posthumous lifetime award too.

What was the best wellness take from a celebrity or influencer in 2024? Ilona Maher - for everything 2024 What was the worst wellness take from a celebrity or influencer in 2024? Should AG1 be talked about? I have read the not best things about it but yet most podcasts advertise for it. Also, Kourtney Kardashians G1LP1 supplement What was the biggest wellness scandal of 2024? CHILDREN AND SKINCARE. Not sure who all goes into Sephora but it’s a true nightmare. I have friends who us UNDER 10 year olds have their “good expensive skincare” and experts have said in the long run this will be bad for these poor kids skin, but no “adult” seems to care. What was the weirdest wellness trend of 2024? A big push from the “right” aka Turning PointUSA Wellness podcast “ Culture apothecary” to drink RAW MILK, became a huge trend. This podcast also pushes anti-pharma and not to take medications, that the school system is ruining our students, I mean it’s a rabbit hole of a podcast for sure. Close #2- cortisol face, this trend happened over night and something else for women to be self-conscious about. Okay also controlling hormones with red meat and shit. Also the legit fear of this group of people of SEED OIL. What was the biggest public health victory of 2024? UHHH TBD? Who was the griftiest grifter of 2024? Alex Clark from Culture apothecary, which is a TPSUA podcast Also I vote the worm in RFKs brain to win the grifter award

griftiest grifter of 2024: RFK jr. Hello MAHA 🥴

Best celeb: every one who said vote blue. Weirdest trend: this is new, but the raw milk people who are now saying “boil your milk! BUT DON’T GET PASTEURIZED MILK.” 🤦‍♀️

I didn’t realize raw milk was back in the zeitgeist! Everything really is cyclical, fashion and snake oil alike!

The “seed oils are all poison” trend seems pretty weird to me—I could kinda-sorta understand how the original canola hate got started, but the way it’s spread to everything else is baffling. The lady who insists that glasses are a scam and you could see just fine if you cleansed your spirit or whatever is *outstandingly* weird! But she seems to be just one person, whereas the anti-seed-oil people are everywhere. Also—I’m not sure this counts as a wellness grift but it’s certainly a grift—VEGAN LEATHER. It’s plastic, friends. I have no issue with vegans or their often delicious food but can we all please stop pretending that making handbags and shoes out of plastic is good for us or for the environment?

I work in healthcare and the amount of completely bonkers “wellness” supplements people take has me shaking my head, but the griftiest one I’ve come across lately is ASEA “active redox cell signaling supplements” which are made from two ingredients: deionized water and sodium chloride. Or, more simply, salt water. SALT. WATER. And people are paying hundreds of dollars a month for this shit. Was I surprised to learn that this company is located in Utah, patron state of all wellness grifting companies? Not one bit.

Weirdest wellness trend: the influx in microtrends insinuating that AFAB people are somehow uniquely beholden to hormone cycles (i.e., cortisol face, obsession with attributing everything to luteal/follicular phases, demonization of BC). I feel like this has to be an indicator of the global rise of the far right. Not sure this is a wellness scandal, but the whole Lunchly being a "better for you" alternative because it didn't have preservatives, only for everyone to discover the power of preservatives was something. Griftiest grifter has to be RFK Jr. Hope for 2025...both my sister and I are graduating next year! We both put in a lot of work to get these degrees and I'll be damned if I let those fuckers take that accomplishment away from us.

What's bringing me hope is that after 4 years which involved being pregnant during covid, getting laid off during my maternity leave, daycare closures every other week, post partum depression, fatigue, migraines, etc. I FINALLY prioritized my own health this year and got pushy with my doctors and got a diagnosis of Premature Menopause and started HRT. It has been a life changer and a life saver and I'm ready to have the energy to fight the good fight.

Weight For It Podcast needs a call out even though doesn't really fit any of these categories. Hormone balancing and the "toxicity" of seed oils are the worst wellness trends.

Biggest grift? RFK Jr. getting The Orange Menace to promise to put him in charge of HHS.

weirdest wellness trend - All of the silicon valley companies that are chasing the "Use AI to solve your health problems" trend. AI can fix your mental health, diagnose your health problems, and tell you what to eat! I literally get multiple emails every week from tech companies trying to hire engineers for these types of very obvious grifts. The mental stuff ones make me the most upset, but it's all icky. If you do use this suggestion, please do not include my name.

I dunno if the ultra-processed food panic has hit you in the US yet, but over here in the UK it's a big part of The Guardian's ongoing existential crisis - compare ULTRA PROCESSED FOODS WILL KILL US ALL (even though we can't provide a clear definition of what UPFs are) https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/feb/28/ultra-processed-food-32-harmful-effects-health-review to (six months later) HERE'S A LIST OF BRANDS THAT HAVE PAID US TO SAY THEY AREN'T UPFS (even though we still don't have a clear definition) AND DEFINITELY WON'T KILL YOU https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/jul/31/avoid-ingredients-you-dont-know-25-of-the-healthiest-ultra-processed-foods-you-can-buy (look, I know they have to take advertising to survive but... if you undermine your ability to do useful journalism... whyyyyyy)

I’m getting hope watching Alex Jones and Rudy Guiliani’s assets being unloaded 😂

I think the weirdest one I’ve come across is the Anti-shoe people. I have seen multiple posts about how are feet should not change shape from infancy and any changes are unhealthy damage done by the shoe industry!

I think for sure weirdest wellness trend is coffee enemas… worst take is the chick who says you can correct your bad vision with essential oils and that basically, poor vision is your own fault.

Weirdest for me is my middle school students being obsessed with mouth taping. They somehow have the idea that breathing through your nose is a better filter for toxins than breathing through your mouth, so they should maximize how much they do it by taping their mouths shut while sleeping. I just hear that and imagine them getting a stuffy nose overnight and suffocating themselves. One popular brand of tape that they seem to like is called HOSTAGE Mouth Tape, which I cannot imagine marketing that to children. So now in addition to "mewing" to supposedly masculinize their jawlines, my boys scotch tape their mouths shut during class so that they don't have to participate, giving me the excuse that they're "optimizing" their breathing.

Oh! Isn't there research that the isolation we did in 2020 actually made a flu variant go extinct? I've been clinging to that

I kept getting the tomatoes are basically deadly nightshade videos. Which is true, but only in the same way tuna is basically a shark.

The entire make America healthy again trend

Best take, maybe a stretch: Chappell Roan setting boundaries? Either that or videos of her talking back to paparazzi gives me hope for 2025

When did "mewing" start? That one makes my entire brain hurt.

Best wellness take has to be Ilona Maher being so open about balancing femininity with having a larger body. Her Tik Tok about her BMI was lovely and her message on dancing with the stars??? So refreshing!!

Griftiest grifter = RFK Jr for sure

Biggest wellness scandal is, was, and will be RFK Jr. becoming head of HHS

What's giving me hope for 2025 is all the great gains that were made on the local levels. Change in this country almost always starts with local movements and go up. And rfk has got to be the griftiest grifter

Gonna leave another vote for "hormone balancing" as worst wellness take! Why are all these influencers suddenly pretending to be endocrinologists and trying to help me fix my "cortisol face"?

Worst take or griftiest grifter: Emily Oster pivoting from covid denial to "actually raw milk isn't that bad" like clockwork after the election. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/13/opinion/vaccines-fluoride-raw-milk.html Honorable mention to Leana Wen: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/11/14/fluoride-water-kennedy-rfk-brain-development/ Both of them know exactly who they're trying to be important to!

My algorithm is rhe griftiest grifter of my joy and hope this past election. Does that count?

The Onion buying Infowars has been nice

Biggest public health victory is probably something that we’ll never realize or appreciate because it was made by an anonymous worker at the USDA or FDA, spotting a diseased animal or finding a problem in the manufacturing process of a popular drug—something like that. Our functioning regulatory systems that keep us safe every day and that we’ll only truly appreciate as they get dismantled.

Trump or republicans for griftiest grifter

weirdest wellness trend: the entirety of "cortisol face" and every bs thing peddled to fix it

weirdest wellness trend: the somatic exercises/“trauma in your hips” crowd that brings weird claims and baggage to… just stretching? biggest scandal: not sure if this was a 2024 thing but carnivore md admitting his diet fucked up his body

Dave Asprey talking about injecting urine into his muscles. Is it the worst or the weirdest? IDK

Seed oils belong somewhere here (maybe Dr. Cate Shanahan for grittiest grifter, although not sure anyone can claim to have out grifted RFK this year. brain worm mfer grifted his way all the way to a health secretary nomination 🙄)

I'm not in the UK but RFK Jr has to feature in there somewhere. I've been trying to avoid the craziness but it's seeping in... What's bringing me hope - the new generation. Gen Z and Gen Alpha (I think they're the right terms). My son's are 19 and 12 and they're genuinely good people and so are their friends. I have heard them call people out for referring to others as "gay", "fat", and all sorts of other things. They are protective of each other. My partner is a therapist in the NHS and has said he has really noticed this from the younger generations too. I am hopeful we are moving in the right direction as long we protect them from the here and now...

Biggest public health victory: there's been heaps of talk about providing free period products here in Australia. The Victoian government is now providing them at different lolocations around Melbourne. There were some schools in Queensland that were doing it for their students and there have been initiatives for remote First Nations communities too. We love to see iit!

Wellness scandal, if this counts: that AI-generated mushroom foraging book. Or any AI-written health advice!

Worst trend “seed oils” and “unpasteurized milk”

Perhaps I'm late to the party but the worst wellness trend I'm seeing is the "no seed oils" proponents.

Weirdest wellness trend (worst wellness trend imo, but that’s not the category): literal children being obsessed with skincare and being so terrified of aging

Griftiest grifter's gotta be RFK right

I’d like to nominate cortisol face or the overall fixation on cortisol levels itself as a weird wellness trend. I feel like I kept getting videos about it over the summer until I finally had to put “not interested” on the videos.

Best Wellness take is definitely Ilona Maher being everyone’s online bestie reminding us to eat and appreciate our bodies.

Oh lord, where to start? Raw milk 🤢 milk should not be chunky! Cortisol being the new thing to demonise. As someone who has had cortisol issues, it astounds me how often grifters throw around absolute nonsense. The antivaxxers who now say that skin cancer is a myth or something BS and not to wear sunscreen because "toxins", or something... I don't know, enjoy your skin cancer I guess 🤷🏼‍♀️ Oh and Russell Brand grifting away as if we'll forget who he actually is 👀

Worst take: raw milk is back. And then for Weightloss Bacteriostatic injection, seems to be promoted mostly Facebook and saw it on insta too.

Can't remember if you covered him previously or not but that Twitter child who says he's reversing aging should be checked in on

I'm gonna be able to graduate with an associates in natural resources in 2025, so that's whats bringing me hope. Also knowing there's a gay support/meetup thing in my area is pretty hopeful, idk if it was always there or if it's only come about in the past few years but I intend to get in touch with them and hopefully get more involved with my local community.

For best wellness take, it’s gotta be Irish actress Nicola Coughlan talking about her sex scenes in Bridgerton. Here’s the quote from Vanity Faire: “During a recent post-screening Q&A in Dublin, a journalist said that Coughlan was “very brave” to bare her body onscreen for her role as Penelope Featherington. Without missing a beat, she replied, “You know, it is hard ’cause I think women with my body type, women with perfect breasts—we do not see ourselves onscreen enough,” which earned her laughs and cheers from the audience. “I am very proud as a member of the perfect-breasts community. I hope you enjoy seeing them.”” Not totally a wellness take per se, but an excellent response to a really inappropriate statement. Female celebrities are always being asked about their bodies in invasive ways, but Coughlan manages to be both very funny and also refuse to accept the flawed premise that her body is somehow weird or wrong. And she did look hot in the show!!

What’s bringing me hope? I think (hope) our generation is developing a new appreciation for the incredible things our bodies can do, versus trying to shrink them to be as small as possible. Example: I’m a new mom and am in a mom’s group where we share our joys and lows. NOT ONCE in the 10 months we’ve been meeting as someone talked about “losing weight” or “getting their bodies back” and I LOVE it!!!! I’m so proud of the body that birthed my son and has nourished, held, and loved him. And I have no idea what it weighs and no desire to find it!

RFK Jr for top prize 😩

Ilona Maher for the best wellness takes 🥰

Idk if this counts, but I think Zyn should be the biggest wellness scandal of 2024. It was supposed to help adults get off cigarettes and vapes, but instead it got CHILDREN on nicotine and gave them a way to sneakily get their fix and hide it from parents and teachers.

We have to mention the return of the Victoria Secret Fashion Show as the worst this year. I will give Katy Perry a shout as Griftiest Grifter. Her Women's World video missed the mark and feels like she's trying to bandwagon. Plus, she made the album with Dr. Luke (famously sued by Kesha for sexual assault). Other terrible things she's done: She sued a bunch of nuns and one of them died at the courthouse! She sued an octogenarian with Huntington's Disease! She sued a designer whose legal name is Katie Perry! She drinks celery juice! She cracks hardboiled eggs on her forehead because she's just like us!

RFK Jr for griftiest grifter and worst wellness trend has gotta be raw milk

Best take for me is Jameel Jamil and her purse croissants at Paris Fashion Week.

I look forward to this episode. Clearly we need a wellness grifting hall of fame for RFK junior and the tech bro who is obsessed with youth.

Worst wellness trend- raw milk 🤢

RFK is for sure the griftiest grifter of all time.

RFK Jr can be all of em can't it

Feels like the Carnivore crowd in general needs its own category - Shawn Baker’s crowdfunded Revero/phantom clinical trial….Paul Saladino yelling into his phone about toxins on your butt paper…people eating sticks of butter just cuz…and the most popular women of the group who look like they’re well into the grips of a deadly eating disorder and killing themselves for clout/$$$ 😔

All RFK Jr all the time. I cannot fathom the decision making there. Light of hope- he might not get through the vetting process. At least I hope not.

Also-I’m 8 months pregnant, and it is ALARMING how many “crunchy” mom influencers are pushing anti vax and anti vitamin k shots.

Hard to have hope for 2025. I think I lost all hope in the future of the country. THAT SAID something that brings me hope for 2025 is that I will be marrying my fiancé in October. We’re both women. No matter what happens federally, Colorado (where we are) has taken steps to protect our right to marry. Even if that goes away, what brings me hope is that I’m going to spend my life with the person that I love regardless and that so many of our friends and family will support and validate us even if the government doesn’t. Love, partnership, and community are the only things making any of this shit worthwhile.

As far as the last one goes, 100% it’s The Onion buying Infowars, including the stock of supplements which I hope they’re just going to fire into space. The hostile aliens heading our way will get ahold of thousands of Super Male Vitality pills and will be too busy fucking to invade the planet.

Weirdest trend: the tradwife-adjacent "my kids wanted pop tarts so I milked a goat and milled my own flour and made strawberry jam with my feet" tiktoks. (At least these are ridiculous enough that I see more parodies of this nonsense as opposed to the originals, which is why I'm putting it in the weird category)

Idk what hope is anymore, that was from a different era, but I take comfort in seeing these proclamations: lots of [urban] white women willing to be more unhinged because it maybe never mattered (most of my threads feed right now), people in toxic family relationships cutting ties, women reclaiming the word witch (just for fun), Black women posting they are exhausted and done—they have every right to be but just by posting these things I think it shows there’s some fight left and the incredible resilience of Black women. Was drinking Borax this year? The days roll together. Now I can’t find it in the laundry aisle because a whole bunch of wellness conspiracy victims were drinking it. I believe drinking hydrogen peroxide also made a comeback. Maybe 2025 we could start drinking OxiClean—solves every health woe I heard, but you do your own research.

Not sure where this fits (could be best take from Trey Parker and Matt Stone) but the South Park ozempic special seriously nailed it as far as addressing how far phobia affects fat people and how it's worse than actually being fat And how ozempic sucks and is totally abused

Skincare for kids fad! Hopeful for my severe acne now healing and feeling and looking a million times better with the use of prescribed drugs from a dermatologist. Regretting all the money and time wasted on skincare fads which didn't work!!

Well RFKjr deserves a lifetime achievement award, that's for damn sure.

Weight loss cult, Bright Line Eating”. Check out her vlog on YouTube titled “Is BLE a cult” and dont forget to put tape on your mouth while you cook so you don’t accidentally taste something.

Also wtf is the deal with cortisol

I mean, is there anyone other than RFK, Jr who deserves GG?

Just now realizing that I’ve mostly taught the algorithm to avoid health and wellness and just show me crypto and MLM scammers. It’s really too bad Sam Bankman Fried didn’t dabble in supplement sales on the side.

Worst wellness trend: The nootropics - supplements saying they support “brain health.” like Magic Mind or Neuro gummies. They’re just caffeine lol

Weird wellness trend; boiling raw milk.

The Berberine TikTok trend….✨nature’s Ozempic✨

Liver king for the scandal for sure

+1 for RFK jr for GG

Weirdest wellness trend companies like hims and hers, where they advertise sending you hair regrowth products, vitamins, ED medications, and I think GLP1s now. They are trying so aggressively to tap into that millennial minimalist on demand vibe and it seems like it’s working. Plus it’s very weird little gender binary they’ve created, no “theirs” I guess

Weird wellness trend: Coffee enemas? Not new but seem to be wildly popular right now.

high coristol/cortisol face!!!

Please do raw milk for weirdest trend. It’s got everything, life threatening illness, superfood status, weird conservative symbolism. And people are even boiling it before drinking it because they don’t know what pasteurization is.

https://www.cagesideseats.com/wwe/2024/10/31/24285037/cody-rhodes-body-shame-pro-wrestlers-physical-best-shape-toxic-health-wwe-push-gunther-crown-jewel this is from the pro wrestling world, but Cody Rhodes, the damn world champion, saying people should body shame him if his physique is slightly off. Its really gross in any context, doubly gross in a industry of people dropping dead in their 40s from drug problems.

The weirdest wellness trend this year is mouth taping for sure. It’s all over TikTok and you can’t get away from it. Also any and all talk of cortisol or “cortisol face”.

i'm seeing other comments on this but i feel like raw milk really could use a full episode from you guys or a little dive re grifties because the lack of knowledge around pasteurization is terrifying!

I think honorable mention should be Boris Johnson taking ozempic. So wild hahah

+1 RFK Jr. for griftiest grift

I feel like the whole anti seed oil thing is the weirdest wellness trend of 2024 but maybe it's older and I just only discovered it this year.

Can we please talk about RFK Jr., but also Food Babe’s endorsement of RFK Jr close to the election?

Magnesium curing everything and also having an odd weight loss undertone at least on my TikTok feed in a similar vein a lot of cortisol talk and lymphatic drainage?

Yes RFK JR for griftiest! He grifted his way to the absolute top!

Rfk has to feature surely. What a trainwreck of a human. Talk about failing upwards.

Nonsense product Sure Shot is just on its way to market at present, but it is definitely giving me hope for a hilarious 2025 grifties when its alcohol reducing magic is inevitably proven to be snake oil. https://sureshot.com/

Another vote for RFK Jr for griftiest gritter. I just hope he kills a lower percentage of people than he did in American Samoa (yep, this is what passes for hope these days)

One of my favorite wellness takes from an influencer/celebrity is John Green reminding everyone that not only is raw milk bad but cows get tuberculosis and you can contract tuberculosis from raw milk.

With RFK Jr. currently in a position to potentially undo almost every public health accomplishment of the 20th century, I think he needs a special honor. Like he's Michael Jordan in a year when the NBA press are sick of giving him the MVP. It's impossible to say he doesn't win in every category, but then what's the fun of having this competition if it's just about him?

The sudden shift to attack “ultra processed foods” as the worst thing

Worst take - elle McPherson saying she naturally cured her cancer and the Australian media repeating their belle Gibson gaff by covering it without any sort of criticism Weirdest - "morning sheds" on tiktok (not sure if that counts as health or beauty but it's deranged) Victory- seeing so many states pass laws to protect reproductive healthcare Rfk takes grifter no contest. Best - Barbara palvin not talking about dieting when asked about the VS fashion show (look up the video clip, it's great). I'm based in the UK (originally from the US) so I am holding out hope that our govt is going to seriously take on it's mandate to invest in the NHS

The Democratic Party is the griftiest grifter for trying to sell us the same things they’ve been offering for years and pretending like it was something new and brave. They saw the state of things in our country and failed to do anything meaningful to change it, and then expected people to support them just for not being Trump. Instead, people hit the self-destruct button in exchange for even the chance of something being different. People like RFK are just doing what we have observed them to do for years; it’s not novel or interesting to watch a delusional man continue to be deluded in the same predictable ways. The democrats’ grift was unsuccessful, but definitely the most noteworthy and insidious, because it delivered us to the present moment. Thanks guys! Anyway, rant over, love the podcast and everything you guys do. What gives me hope is that there are still voices of reason out there trying to chart a path forward through this new nightmare.

Best wellness take from an influencer has to be Ilona Maher telling people to eat and her BMI of 30 is a bronze medalist and shutting down haters that power can't be beautiful

Isn’t RFK Jr. the griftest grifter? The man spewed bullshit and is now in charge of the HHS if he passes approval 🫠

Emily Oster! Though I really want to see a whole If Books Could Kill series on her.

Worst wellness take: raw milk. Weirdest is that Bryan Johnson guy who is trying to live forever by infusing his son's plasma and other weird shit. Ironically, he doesn't look younger, just often looks wet for some reason.

I’m not sure what category this would fit into, but athletic greens! Founded by a notorious grifter and seen as a holy grail product for a lot of people despite being a generic supplement

raw milk, rebranding carnivore as "animal based", gluten misinformation about the EU versus america, FOOD DYES

Okay but there’s so many to chose from 🥴🥴

Please talk about this weird ass "you have high cortisol" BS trend.

Raw milk!!!

Worst wellness take: anti-sunscreen grifters

RFK Jr for biggest grifter 😭

Griftiest grifter has to be RFK Jr. He grifted himself all the way to the HHS nomination 🤦‍♀️

RFK Jr and his brain worm for griftiest grifter

I don’t even know what category this fits into - worst wellness take of 2024? The movie The Substance. Please dear lord do a deep dive on it.