Nominate the best, worst & wildest for the 2023 GRIFTIES!

Does anyone else know why the grifty episode is available only for MP after dark subscribers and hasn’t been posted to the Patreon??

Not sure whether people will see this - but I have a spare ticket to Aubrey’s movie in Brighton the Dukes at Komedia, Saturday 13 January at 1pm. None of my friends can make it - I thought someone here might like it. We can hang out, or not, just as you wish. I guess reply here or try to send a message…? Not sure how that works here.

i would say one of the worst is eugenia cooney coming back into the public eye. i really hope she gets the help she needs but the ways that fans interact with her is so horrible. i also think it would be really interesting to hear an episode on the tumblr/ myspace era of ed glorifying and romanticizing especially in emo culture. i’m a gen z who was talking to a millennial cousin who really remembers these spaces and it seems fucking horrifying to me haha

Kangen water- it's an ionized and alkaline water generator that claims to "increase the availability of molecular hydrogen", whatever that means! It also claims be antioxidant rich, and pH balancing. It's a cool 4800 euros. https://www.enagiceu.com/en_US/what-is-kangen-water

Also would love an episode about the ridiculous reasons ADHD medication has been largely unavailable to some folks in the US and now other countries (some because it's being diverted for weight loss).

I am probably too late for this given it's nearly the end of December, but a family member sent my husband and myself 'Goodbye Lupus: How a Medical Doctor Healed Herself Naturally With Supermarket Foods' by Brooke Goldner for Christmas and WOOF. It advocates for a raw food diet (the "lasanga" recipe will have you gagging) predominantly with smoothies. It's textbook health fad nonsense with terms that mean nothing, "scary" foods, and the claim this diet cures everything. She literally tells you to cut out all "additional oils" then has a section almost immediately after explaining that chia seed oil is essentially liquid gold.

I don’t really know where to write this, to be clear it DOES NOT fit in this thread, but if some folks are watching Aubrey’s doc during the rental period from the 28-31, want to discuss somewhere?

And I'm spamming but I just remembered 'flaneuring.' It's taking a walk. But in French? It's also tangentially related to an obscure anarchist school of thought call psychogeography that I got real into in college. It's very weird to see Hoda talking about my fav weed influenced hobby from ten years ago (minus the situationist label of course). Obscure as anything but I am obsessed with it.

I know you covered some of this in the Jordan Peterson episodes but I feel like the carnivore diet is everywhere all of a sudden. Specifically in weird wellness takes. Bonus for the former raw vegan to carnivore influencer thing. Maybe I'm just in a weird part of the internet but I have been seeing way too many folks eating sticks of butter like candy bars this year.

I just saw this headline ... They are now willing to put a robot in your stomach to prevent you from eating 🫠 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adj3003

It's probably not the worst but would be great if you could at some point mention Pink Himalayan salt (and other imported sea salts). They are pricey, in so many food and spa products. I mean, it's just salt right? And shouldn't it be, like, left in the Himalayas so we don't f* up the environment even more?

WORST wellness take from a celebrity is tech mogul Bryan Johnson who has spent millions of dollars to try and “age in reverse.” He’s 46 years old and is trying to achieve the body of an 18 year old. This has included getting a transfusion of his son’s blood, crazy dieting, some interesting plastic surgery he dubbed “project baby face,” and more. Apparently he spends $2 million a year on anti-aging but he really took off this year in the public eye. Rich people do weird things.

Another nomination for this years grifties weirdest wellness trend: paying for a whole body MRI scan when not medically necessary

This may not quite fit the bill but this year so many of my friends have been self-diagnosing with “undiagnosed adhd” - and I don’t want to deny them their own experiences but I think social media is rife with misinformation about various neurodivergent diagnoses. I’d nominate bad brain information for the grifties!

Has the podcast ever talked about alkaline water? Cause that is ridiculous.

I don't have a nomination, so this is off topic and I apologize, but wanted to say I love this show, 100% support taking it easy on making new episodes (the amount of research you guys do is wild!) and I would happily listen to you guys discuss reality TV I don’t watch or any niche interest you can think of. Also would live ro hear Mike talk about Eurovision (I am European). Also, I am going to put in a request, wish... I don't know how comfortable the subject is but I would like to hear you guys on the subject of fat fashion. I see blogs of gorgeous fat people in colorful outfits, I love that for them but the subject is so complicated, for me at least... so much high maintenance colorful fashion, when I am most comfortable in earth tones and jeans... How beauty and fashion and looks pressures are touchy when you're fat... taking space and being visible, etc. A lot of it is all about body positivity and self expression... Do I always have to be brave and loud to be well-dressed while fat? Is there a way to dress neutral as a fat woman? Etc. I have mostly solved this by not caring how I dress, but it feels like a sore point, the conspicuousness of my body.

This isn't a nomination as such but your show has gotten me so interested in these grifters that it's scrambled my Facebook algorithm once and for all and my targeted ads are getting increasingly out there. Today I got one for "level 5 mentoring", a self-help service. In the comments somebody had tagged the guy behind it, so I looked at his profile, and with seconds there was the racism, the blaming poor people for their own situation, the transphobia, etc etc. If you want a cartoonish parody of every single grifter you ever talk about, look up Brian D. Ridgeway on Facebook.

Before I forget... the diet nomination: Intermittent Fasting! It's still out there, it's still being endorsed as "THE DIET" for weight loss for everyone under the sun, no matter what medical conditions you have. IF is simply another name for anorexia.

I'm joining the trend of using devices and treatments designed for diabetics for everything but diabetes, leaving diabetics scrambling for the very things they need to stay alive, monitor and improve their health, and treat their diabetes. I still can't get Ozempic and I've had a script for a year for it! The price is outrageous too! My second choice is lumping everything but "Type 1" diabetes as "Type 2" when there are so many causes. My third is blaming fat for every disease and condition under the sun when it could be a result of the condition in the first place. My fourth is mandatory weigh ins at doctor's offices cause BMI is apparently the most important measure of your health! *tears hair out*

Little late to the party but I nominate “liquid iv” and the like. For most people, water is fine. Also the protein added to everything fad. Maybe this good for older folks, but your body can only absorb so much protein and surprise you can also build muscle from other forms of energy like carbohydrates.

Way late addition but I weirdly fixated on Neurofeedback therapy…. I spent a fortune on it and I still can’t quite tell if it’s junk science. Also all those companies selling mushroom supplements for focus, mood, etc. Seem to be hoping people mistake lions mane for psilocybin…

One big victory, a bill just passed to give National Guard members family leave for fathers and adoptive parents.

That Ww/Oprah NPR article. I’m not anti-Ozempic, or whatever people want to do with their bodies, and gods know we have been thru All the Things with Oprah for the last forty fucking years, but these WW statements took my breath. “You know all those years we told you to keep dieting? Joke’s on you, it doesn’t work. Haha Now take these drugs (and give us your money) ! “. The supercilious sanctimoniousness of it all. I cannot.

Okay I know I’m late to the party for this episode, but a majorly problematic health and wellness take to consider late in 2023 came to us from the one and only Bernie Sanders. He recently wrote an op ed in USA Today about tackling the “epidemics” of type 2 diabetes and childhood obesity by regulating junk food ads targeted at kids. Major echos of personal responsibility, no discussion of the classism baked into food access, and a stigmatizing frame of diabetes and fatness. Woof! https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2023/12/14/diabetes-obesity-epidemic-america-corporations-ads-kids/71884221007/

Weight watchers now supports oxempic/wegovy they did a hard pivot on that one.

I feel like Oprah coming out as pro-Ozempic last week was her way of making a play for a Lifetime Achievement Award. I love her so much! I hate this for her! (I don’t think she intends to be a grifter, but her takes on health and diet have been so bad for so long…she deserves awards for this.) She can of course do whatever she wants with her own body, but using her giant platform to announce that “obesity is a disease”? No thanks.

Honestly the griftiest thing of the year is faux-zempic compounding pharmacies

In the Honorable Mentions, if anyone else uses the Calm app see Matthew Walker narrating a sleep story about the importance of sleep?! (I’m a lifelong audiobook listener to fall asleep, so I like their sleep stories but yikes)

Kaiser southern california partnered with this company that sells weightloss shakes. When you tell them you have disordered eating like orthorexia, you have to take this class to unlock wellness coaches etc. and 2/3 of the class is either bariatric surgery or weightloss shakes. Coming from my health insurance!

Did you all listen to that Making It Awkward podcast episode where Dr. Lustig said it’s better to not eat than to eat processed food? I’d like to nominate it for worst take of 2023. https://open.spotify.com/episode/75QEOL65NSquwWqXFtA9Rr?si=A-9EVcfFTkaMotwkvPpKyw

Im really into the concept of lifestyle changes. I think this concept deserves a full hour interrogation. In the meantime, I nominate lifestyle changes for worst wellness take.

My nomination is Stevia- not sure what category but more of a general “why is this happening,” not good or bad, I’m just confused. Why is stevia in everything now? It tastes weird to me and I can always tell when it is in something, even if it is just on of the sweeteners (example- low sugar item with cane sugar + stevia).

I have two co-workers that are currently doing a parasite cleanse they bought on Amazon. I was invited to join them in their journey and politely refused while trying very hard not to roll my eyes.

Also I beyond love your show and hope beyond hope that you never stop the content . So well researched. So fun. And gives me the tools to talk about the fatphobia I am constantly being bombarded with from every angle: culture media people . It’s hard to deal but I feel like you two are the bright light in a word of darkness in the most genuine way. Thank you for everything.♥️

I just wanted to let you know I got an add from Tommy John and the email title was: Forget Ozempic. This Is The Best Thing For Your Butt Tommy John is an underwear/ pj brand. I don’t even know what to do about it but it gave major ick. And I was beyond shocked . What the fuck

The anti sunscreen ‘movement’ is fairly concerning/idiotic. I’d also like to nominate any anything FUPA related (FUPA targeting workouts, diets, the term itself etc) - not only does this include a relatively new thing to feel body shame about, a lot of the time fitness influencers are referring to the entire lower half of the abdomen and calling it FUPA. For those unaware, FUPA stands for ‘Fat Upper 🐱 Area’

I’m DESPERATE to hear you guys do a deep dive on Jessie Lee Ward. She was a keto MLM boss babe who claimed she cured her stage 4 liver cancer with naturopathic and holistic medicine… and died 5 months later. She was a wild human being and her tragic death had a huge impact on the MLM/Anti-MLM communities but I haven’t heard much about the impact her death had on the company she sold for or any other peripheral factors outside of MLM industry criticism.

I may be late to this but only heard about it this year, the YUKA app that ranks food, wellness and skincare items so you know what is good and what is bad. Also the borax tiktok trend.

Worst Wellness Take: The American Academy of Pediatrics new recommendations for childhood obesity—and the NYT's The Daily episode where they talked about them. I was pulling my hair out when they said things like "[The recommendations] involve examining a child as young as two and saying, does this child have obesity? If so, they advise intensive lifestyle counseling and treatment." WTF?! 2 YEARS OLD?! Imagine your earliest memories being counseling sessions where you learn that you're fat. And of course there was no discussion about the efficacy of their interventions. AND they talked about how reframing obesity as a disease could help lessen the stigma of fatness. No! BAD podcast! BAD Michael Barbaro!

Zoe! What is up with that?! Is it just weird or grifty too?!

Id like to nominate Twitter after this study: https://www.techtimes.com/articles/291449/20230512/fatphobic-tweets-twitter-study-obesity-twitter-posts-negative.htm

I’d love an episode about how racial bias is imbued in fat phobia!

that SZA "i want a big boy" tiktok sound trend that got switched in four seconds from pretty fat men to tall thin people and gym influencers - but the trend didn't even work for the thin people because you couldn't see them behind their girlfriends!

Not sure if this started in 2023 by Xylitol being renamed as "birch sugar" has been pretty frustrating. I only noticed it because I use peanut butter to give my dog tablets and xylitol is toxic to dogs.

This is probably going to come up a lot from UK listeners but I personally would appreciate an honerable Mention for Boris Johnson/ life time achievement award because of everything he said and did during Covid that we are only just finding out about this year

You should include Dr Michael Moseley from the UK in the grifties. Intermittent fasting was pushed by him. Now he has a radio series 'just one thing ' the idea if you do the thing he suggests your life will improve. But there are LOADS of things and he really oversimplifies everything. His 'wisdom' could be dangerous mentally or physically in the wrong hands.

The wildest thing I've seen this year is Coherent Water. My sister got one of these things in her Christmas gift from work (wILD in itself) but it's ridiculous. It's called the Analemma, (tagline, the architect of life, https://analemma-water.com/) where you buy a crystal 'wand' for 150euros that will make your water coherent??? It works like holy water but you just stir the wand in your water before you drink it. But you dont pour it in, just sit the vial in it and the water will become coherent. It's- it's truly something.

I get weirdly fixated on the wellness and weight loss culture that is very present in white, Christian, homesteading families with lots of children that share their lives on social media. "Trim healthy mamma" is always referred to for weight loss and there is often a strange combination of moralizing food, "we only eat organic cheese from Azure standard", and monetizing videos documenting "I did a big Walmart order for salsa and chips yesterday"

Weirdest wellness trend: colloidal silver

Weirdest wellness trend for me has to be drinking borax to reduce inflammation

What’s with all the ice bath content I’m seeing lately? I nominate ice bath content for the category of “why though?”

Please look into the trend of influencers talking about everyone drinking "dead water" and the 800 dollar water bottle they can buy to "hydrogen-ate" their water alive again. Uggggggh

Oprah

I don't care if it was an unpaid intern who was immediately fired, the fact that ANYONE allowed "wartime weight loss" to pass over their desk while an estimated 40% of Palestinians dealt with food insecurity BEFORE the war says something about who the aggressor very clearly is here. But American media is fucking allergic to doing any kind of material analysis of obvious power discrepancies, so we're still both-sidesing an open and shameless genocide. And still entertaining the complete and utter fiction that reacting to Hamas's bulldozer-glider strike with one of the heaviest aerial bombing campaigns in history is in the same universe as anything proportional or "defensive."

https://nypost.com/2023/11/07/media/jerusalem-post-deletes-how-to-use-wartime-stress-to-lose-weight/ Saw someone post this for the If Books Could Kill worst take of the year, I think it's worth a mention on MP since it's about weight loss too... Jesus Fucking Christ

Was puzzled why my fave local soup & salad place started calling things “Blue Zone”. After a week of different ones I realized with dread what was probably going on and googled “blue zone” and this new (to me) diet popped up —sounds like one of those seemingly “fine” ones on the surface, which are honestly the worst sometimes. The whole “eat like these people groups who we claim live longer or are not fat.” Ugh!

This doesn’t exactly fit any of these categories, but Dead Ringers - one of the best shows of 2023- included great rifs on various wellness trends & a send up of The Sachlers. And Rachel Weisz is amazing in it.

Griftiest grifter: the myriad questionable supplement companies that suddenly emerged and rushed in to capitalize on ADHD medication shortages

Obscure wellness trend I fixated on: red light therapy

Worst wellness take: Andrew Huberman’s anti sunscreen stance

A NYC public hospital put on a fashion show fundraiser where patients who had undergone bariatric surgery walked the runway while their "before" images were shown on a giant screen?!?!? Unreal.

Public health victory: multiple Medicare reforms including a cap on insulin cost sharing

This isn’t specifically from this year BUT one day I’d love to hear your thoughts on Shen Yun

Griftiest grifter has got to be those Bellevue doctors who did unnecessary bariatric surgery on poor people/prisoners to make money. What the actual fuck is wrong with people???? https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/07/business/bariatric-surgery-bellevue-hospital.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

EmRata wearing big pants photoshoot!

Late nomination for Bellevue hospital pushing bariatric surgeries on low income people and even prisoner, cutting corners to speed patients through the process and make profit. We are truly living in the darkest timeline.

AirUp Water Bottles - they make your water taste like it flavoured with smell?!? Who asked for this!

Additional mentions for grifters of 2023: 1) Kardashian fam (esp Kim K and her Private Equity firm working with the bro whose company bought Taylor Swifts records) and their fake church and many other scams. 2) George Santos scam queen. 3) GOP Congress doing absolutely nothing but take more rights away from women, children, LGBTQ+, people of color, people in poverty, and others. 4) Robo calls & political grift texts. 5) Obv that orange bro who thinks he’ll be president again.

Public health scandal - Today’s NY Times has an article about Bellevue Hospital in NY performing 3000 bariatric surgeries a year on predominantly poor patients. Lucrative for doctors and this hospital, patients are often under informed and ill-prepared, some wouldn’t qualify for the surgery at a better regulated hospital. Bad consequences ensue.

Weirdest trend: (commercial) IV drip therapy. I just recently discovered this so maybe it’s not new. But near my house, there’s something called a drip bar? Where you pay a bunch of money for a single IV drip. They have a “menu” of different drips that claim to offer various benefits. They have names like Vitality, Metabolism, Allergy, Jetsetter, etc. It doesn’t seem like something that’s harmful to your health. But, other than a little extra hydration, I doubt it offers what’s promised. Also buccal fat removal. Recently discovered that and I’m real weirded out by it.

Two totally separate people that live hundreds of miles away from each other recently told me that intermittent fasting keeps you from getting sick…

Buccal fat removal needs to be somewhere here too!

Nominating the Borax drinking trend as the weirdest wellness trend of 2023! Absolutely unhinged and dangerous!!

Griftest Grifter: Jessie Lee Ward (JLW) of Pruvit Ketones MLM. The worst part is she developed rectal colon cancer, tried treating it with woo woo red light, vitamin c cleanses, coffee enigmas, ozone treatment (she was friends with our favorite Goop CEO) - and even though she said she was beating colon cancer and publicly sharing her journey on TikTok (her Facebook was taken down), she sadly died back in September. This isn’t about speaking ill of the dead, her grift was harmful in that her message was she could beat cancer by not using any traditional treatment meds and only by using woo woo methods (scam 1) all while selling ketones for weight loss (scam 2) making millions a year. Erin Bies did review on her MLM on YouTube, along with several others. She was a former mentor with an MLM I used to be apart of before I learned more. There’s a huge Reddit thread/jessieleeward that also goes over everything starting with the MLM to the cancer journey - and even in the end she kept she beat cancer, and that kidney stones made her septic, but her family had to make sure to put in her obit that stage 4 cancer took her life because they were afraid her journey might harm others.

Nomination: Tim Ballard and Operation Underground Railroad (OUR) for griftee of 2023. When you can pretend you’re saving all these children from trafficking while getting millions and millions in donations, have UT Atty General Sean Reyes protect you and intimidate witnesses from coming forward and have the blanket cover from Mormons/LD$ Church and get away with this for so long while you’re actually trafficking women and SAing them in various countries while under the guise of saving kids and claiming that you are the messiah. There’s are tons of lawsuits against Tim Ballard and OUR, Sound of Freedom, etc. The evidence is so so damning.

Can we talk about the Infinity Hoop to lose weight? Am I the only one getting those ads on Instagram and TikTok constantly? That and the "somatic workouts."

I don't think this is very obscure, but I'm obsessed with hormone balancing trend. A colleague bought me 'Woman Code' by Alisa Vitti, it's basically a diet book and the number of times she uses words like beautiful to relate to health makes me a little queasy.

I didn’t know where to send or post this but I really need you guys’ take on this please because what the actual FUCK is this fuckery: https://people.com/brandi-mallory-cause-of-death-revealed-extreme-weight-loss-8405308

Griftiest Grifter Tim Spector and Zoe $294 then $59 a month, send in your poo then get a CGM, eat foods to reduce your “glucose spike” non evidence based with a long list of claims of things that can be solved, using authority bias Regular on podcast spreading misinformation. Would add the glucose goddess as a supporting act 😀

Using CGMs (continuous glucose monitors) to “biohack”. As a straight sized mid 20s type one diabetic, people are always commenting on the CGM i wear on my arm. The first question is usually “is that a nicotine patch” or worse “ooo are you biohacking? i tried isn’t it great?” to which i always respond “no i have diabetes do you have any other questions about my health?” If i’m feeling extra spicy i’ll ask if they want my blood pressure too. A constant reminder let’s not comment on other people’s bodies. If you have a thought about someone you’re probably not the first to tell them and they probably don’t want to hear. Now let’s leave the diabetes supplies to those who actually need them 😤😤

I’m sure you’ve gotten so much about this already, but Noom ads that now feature ozempic could fit into one of your categories. “It’s not a shortcut, it’s a jump start to your health journey” has appeared repeatedly in my Instagram ads since thanksgiving Ugh

Biggest Wellness Scandal: Gwyneth’s bone broth bonanza

Jamie Oliver for griftiest grifter. Maybe too British (/with chains in Oceania also) but basically he rose to fame by criticising school dinners for not being healthy, based on essentially his own biases. He critiqued school meals which used offal thereby encouraging food waste and making schools pay more for meals (when lots of children are in food poverty) Meanwhile his cookbooks and food shows are full of the high fat and sugar foods he criticised - elements of classism definitely in that the high cals are okay when it's in potato dauphinoise but not in chips... He had a chain of restaurants which went into administration, with lots of staff and suppliers going unpaid (2020) whilst he made a packet. Over 1,000 people lost their jobs. They failed in part because he offered management roles to his mates who were in no way qualified. Now for 2023: he's opening a new chain of restaurants! And don't even get me started on his sponsorship deals which are incredibly unethical and hypocritical.

this is probably old, but the whole MUD water thing as an alternative to coffee/caffeine. I've never tried it, but I'm guessing the taste is true to the name.

worst wellness take - I really didn't like the jamila jamil episode with the glucose goddess. It was jarring with the rest of her content. Even if this is how she feels personally about it, it pushed me back into disordered eating. I felt let down by this.

weirdest wellness trend: EMDR - this seemed to become the answer for EVERYTHING this year. I went to some sessions for PTSD and it was 100% awful and definitely re-traumatised me

VSHRED. I am inundated with this punk and his scam diet stuff. Really interesting going into his background and discovering his throne of lies!! I'd love to hear your take on it!!

For public health - and anti-hunger, and poverty reduction win, I nominate all the states passing laws to pay for free school meals for all students. You mentioned this in your wins episode. This got started a couple of years ago and has really taken off this year! (Full disclosure - I work for the org that spearheaded the ballot initiative in Colorado.)

Celeb take: Gwyneth’s “what I eat in a day” bone broth diet was brutal lol

Griftiest grifter HAS to be George Santos! Diet flop: was weight watchers rebrand to ww this year?

When do we have to get our suggestions in by?

The anti-birth control movement on the LEFT. Like the right is trying to ban birth control entirely or make it harder to access birth control, and now there are people on the left who are saying that birth control is terrible and advocating natural methods and such. I'm not going to get into an argument about what problems birth control has, that's not the point. The point is that they're giving bad, fearmongering advice akin to anti-vax levels of panic about birth control pills, providing ammunition for the right to literally take that choice out of women's hands. While birth control pills are the wrong decision for some women, they're life-saving or life-changing for many other women and that kind of information is lost in the panicky fearmongering.

I’m nominating Aaron Rodgers for worst wellness take For saying Fauci should debate RFK Jr. after his pathetic little shot at Travis Kelce.

worst celebrity take: colleen ballinger using her mental health to accrue sympathy for her grooming scandal

Oh for public health victory: New York City's ban on height and weight discrimination, set to go into effect on November 22, 2023. Hopefully will prompt other cities/states/country?? to follow suit.

For obscure/obsession: Not me but my coworker is SO obsessed with wellness trends (she's thin, comes from a thin family, and has never been overweight in her life) and she won't stop talking about salting her water

Obscure/weird one: taping your mouth shut when you sleep. There is SO much hate in the Wellness World for us mouth-breathers...

The obscure/weird wellness trend that fascinated me this year can best be described as "human wellness trends for dogs." I'm in a dog owner FB group for my region (in it for the dog pics, really), and it seemed like every week someone was looking for a chiropractor of an acupuncturist for their pet. I was equally baffled and fascinated. Can you even be certified in that stuff? Is it legal? How would a dog even react to someone trying to adjust its spine or put needles in it? This was all in addition to the dog diet discourse. Lots of words from the human diet world like processed/whole foods, clean eating, stuff being "natural" kept popping up there, mostly around "raw feeding," which is just sort of pitched like paleo diet for dogs. "They used to be wolves!" etc. Anyway, it is fascinating watching people project this stuff on their pets but also a little concerning in some cases. Honestly, this could probably fill a whole episode if you ever need a break from human wellness-land.

I don’t know what category this falls under, but the way “girl dinner” was hijacked and turned into a weird little celebration of disordered eating was unsettling to me!

Collagen. Collagen. Collagen. Protein. Protein. Protein. Those are the ones that got me this year. Is there any science behind consuming collagen in EVERYTHING?

Gua sha is my vote for "weirdest" trend!

I don't know what category to put this in, but I'm so over Ozempic (and all the other ones) and am totally terrified what those drugs will do to my profession. I am a tailor that works with a lot of brides and grooms, and I'm sure those drugs will be the next big thing in wedding world and peoples (normally) unrealistic weight goals

This scandal (or victory) is pretty specific but in France there’s been a lot more regulation this year towards influenceur selling vitamins/food supplements and a lot of them had to literally publish disclaimers in feed on insta to say that they basically were not allowed to sell medical things anymore !

Weirdest would have to be one from tiktok, either mewing (sticking your tongue in your mouth in a way that makes your jaw appear “”thinner”” from the side) OR those straws that women use to prevent wrinkles ???

I’m forgetting the categories but wellness topics that have puzzled me this year: - Nicole LePera - AG1 (the green juice supplement thing that will not leave me alone on YouTube) - the insulin monitors and blood testing services that athletes use to biohack - griftiest grifters: the Sackler family - the book allegedly about ikigai and basically any orientalist fantasies sold as wellness trends (acupuncture, Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, etc.) - menstrual cycle tracking app debacles - and like everyone else, Noom. Just got a 72% off coupon on Insta! 🤣

A pretty sad one was the Chinese influencer that died https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/17/china/china-influencer-dies-weight-loss-boot-camp-intl-hnk/index.html

Reading these makes me lose the will to live. Honestly, it's just one grift after another fat shaming grift. Ugh. Don't you just love how they try to make almost every positive public health gain (walkable cities, guaranteed income, food security, planetary health, bike lanes) about how it helps get rid of fat people too?

Both from my cursed tiktok fyp: "mewing" and use of gua sha that's completely divorced from traditional Chinese medicine/framed entirely in terms of "slimming" and "chiseling"

Weird - Instagram influencers trying to use the sugar free gummy bears from amazon (infamous for having an extreme laxative effect) as some sort of diet tip

I don't think is a bad thing, but one kind of weird trend I'm fixated on is hyper-specific cookbooks: Vegan Jamaican, Scandinavian Baking, and an entire book dedicated to cooking tofu...

weird: obsession with using cottage cheese to up our lean protein intake worst/diet flop in progress: ozempic. mainstream news hasn't picked up on it yet, but triggering depression and helping a fraction of people injecting it into themselves lose maybe 10% bodyweight? I'm waiting for the "hot take" that it was a flop. obscure: mouth taping D: or mushrooms :D

Did someone already say "Balance of Nature" supplements? The ones that give you 5 million fruits and veggies in every bitty capsule so that you can flounce about your day arranging flowers and training service dogs and playing with the grandbabies?

Obscure trend: evil SEED OILS!

I have to say I’m a little fixated on those ads for GoLo. What is that stuff? I almost want to try it out of curiosity. I’m also fixated on the way Weight Watchers has been changing their messaging every 5 minutes—first they claimed to be about wellness, not weight, then they had an ad campaign that specifically focused on how they could help you lose weight, then they they went back to wellness. Also what’s up with those apple cider gummies? Clearly I see too many commercials.

Ok I don’t know the name of this but I keep seeing weird advertisements for it and they try and link it bakc to health by talking about hydrations and needing to get in more water for your health. It’s those weird water bottles that say it’s light flavored water without being flavored because they just have something scented around the top of it. So essentially you are just smelling something while drinking water and it tricks your brain into thinking you are tasting it too 😂🤣 as someone who doesn’t really like many scented thing (like what companies “think” strawberries smell like vs what an actual strawberry tastes like) I’m kind of horrified and baffled by the gimmickiness of this whole thing.

Biggest public health victory (though it's super controversial among some who absolutely hate it) is Wales making 20mph the default speed limit (over 30mph) to reduce fatalities in traffic collisions, and to lower emissions. Weirdest wellness trend, the grifty Trad Wives influencers, selling an idea to the misogynistic manosphere - milk your own cows, bake pies from scratch, raise your babies on your back while you work in the field and your life will be PERFECT with a perfect man. I am so glad I'm not on TikTok and therefore shielded from the grifters and weird wellness trends, but oh boy do I love hearing you two chat shit about it all and dismantling it. Love the show, you guys do an absolutely fantastic job, listening to the podcast feels like having a catch up with old friends (who know what a systematic review is!). With love from a health librarian. Amy. 💜💜💜

I need to know more about Kelly Clarkson’s “miracle” weight loss gummies. She drops a lot of weight really fast (after “trying everything”and “without changing her diet and exercise habits”)?? All the language she uses in the Instagram ad in my feed uses ALL the classic grifty language for weight loss scams. What a disappointment!

I’m sure I’m too late, and this has nothing with health and fitness. But OH WHAT A GRIFT! There’s a 4hr video called Plagiarism on YouTube, the first two people and two hours are about people whose scripts for their video essays are entirely plagiarized from essays (and even forum comments online). To set the groundwork to spend two hours taking down James Somerton, a gay media video essayist, who plagiarized The Celluloid Closet for one video, and countless essays posted online. Somerton makes bank on Patreon, raised $60,000 crowd funding to make indie films, which clearly aren’t getting made. Reddit explanation: https://www.reddit.com/r/Destiny/comments/18a3ebz/can_someone_explain_whatever_this_hbombguy_james/ Video of an ungodly length: https://youtu.be/yDp3cB5fHXQ?si=MoSaLU43aJpEYIdV

The biggest fail is people leaving Weight Watchers in droves after they canceled most of their in person meetings. And then a bunch of the leaders just created their own independent programs!

Caroline Dooner — ex-self-proclaimed anti-diet author who, for the last several years, has spiraled wildly into libertarian alt-right Christian wellness spaces. Had a cancel culture podcast, talks about 9/11 truther stuff, fluoride in the water and anti-sunscreen type stuff.

You all have alluded to (ugh) electrolytes being total bullshit a couple of times... which I 100% want to hear more about at some point. So maybe this falls under weird wellness trends - but (one of) my instagram's ads has become all electrolytes all the time this year. Well, okay, 1/3 electrolytes, 1/3 other fitness bullshit, and 1/3 "barefoot" shoes which I think are actually legit (and not as ugly as they used to be). Sorry for all the parentheticals. Deeply adore the show, I've been telling everyone I know about it ad nauseam.

Weirdest wellness trend: I recently saw this on TikTok - Oil pulling FOR YOUR SKIN. You rub oil on your skin & after massaging while all the dust, hair and dead skin cells pill up like a sweater. People claim it’s pulling things OUT of your skin 🙄 I’ve also seen people rubbing it on their bellies and thighs claiming it helped them lose weight 🤨 Ridiculous. Love the show. Thanks for all you do! Can’t wait for this year’s grifties!

worst “take” if this counts: the fat shaming/anti welfare tangent in rich men north of richmond, weirdest trend: RAW MILK

Grittiest grifters… anyone selling grounding mats. Come on.

Worst wellness take .. Cliff Richard who on a UK daytime TV show said he passed up on a photo opportunity with Elvis because Elvis was fat, because it 'wouldn't look good '

As for a public health victory - I love how insta has a plethora of nutritionists/ food scientists that talk, promote, and celebrate how cultural foods support the communities/ cultures from where they originated; and most importantly there is nothing wrong with eating them!

Not sure if this fits in the wellness scandal category, but definitely look into Caroline Dooner. The fact that she went from a semi liberal anti-diet author to a full blown far-right, anti vax, Christian who actively opposes anti-diet was one of the wildest things I’ve seen. She’s been on a downward spiral since like 2020, but has gotten much worse this year.

My obscure wellness/ health take is the rise of privately paid “bespoke” medical providers in Australia (I’m looking at companies like eucalyptus - and under it “my juniper” (targeted at women and weightless), and “pilot” (targeted at men and low-T/ hair loss/ boner pills). We have socialised medicine in Australia (which isn’t perfect, but glad we have it!). And the rise of these so called health providers to deliver wegovy/ saxenda and similar drugs to women on the basis of an online quiz and a tele-health appt is wild! Some journos investigated the integrity of their systems and found it extremely lacking (more info here: https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/weight-loss-drugs-are-sweeping-australia-at-some-online-stores-they-re-alarmingly-easy-to-get-20230410-p5czb8.html?_gl=1*19mxndh*_ga*NjgyMjA0NjA0LjE3MDA5NTI0MTg. )

I'm not sure if this is 2023 but there seems to be more claims about "organic tampons".

The Dave Hollis WSJ. article. I can’t quite process why it’s all wrong but it is.

Griftiest grifters: I second everyone nominating Ozempic/Wegovy but want to also level up that nomination (consider it a twofer) : the American Pediatric Association's new recommendations to put children as young as 2 on what can only be called yo-yo dieting, and subsequently ok-ing bariatric surgery for children as young as 13 and weight loss drugs for children (including GLP1 drugs, phentermine, etc.) as young as 8. This is SUCH a grift because they *almost* get the point, as much of the recommendations are based on children facing adverse mental health issues due to weight stigma. So -- obviously -- the solution must be bariatric surgery during puberty or putting toddlers on a diet...jfc. In terms of the grift, Regan Chastain did some pretty in-depth reporting when it came out just literally reading the affiliations with pharmaceutical companies for each doctor signed on, and how much they each had been paid by said companies who conveniently make the weight loss drugs at issue here.

Man as someone who gets anaphylactic reactions to sunflower (refined oils are okay, expeller pressed and less processed are not), the seed oil people annoy the hell out of me.

The you don't need glasses your optimologist is lying to you tiktok was a wild one

Brittany Dawn!!!!

Been fascinated by former anti-diet influencer Caroline Dooner going anti anti-diet…and going conspiracy theorist born-again christian.

Wow, oh wow. I live in Ireland and have not heard of 99% of the suggestions here....as I rush off to Google to disappear down countless rabbit holes to investigate! Even the word " wellness" tends to bring me out in a rash. Sooo looking forward to your next episode. Thanks for all the comments/ suggestions everyone!

Griftiest grifter: that Bryan guy who thinks he is immortal because he controls every thing in his life because he's a billionaire, including injecting his sons blood into himself https://youtu.be/07-Tir4Xjds?si=ZI4JcVHfqqO-nKeS

I would also like to nominate the way that self help grifters showed their true colors after the passing of Dave Hollis and Jessie Lee Ward. Mel Robbins promoted her eulogy for DH so much. Ed Mylett talked about how Jessie Lee Ward referred to him as dad, and he got her birthday wrong in the tribute YouTube video he made 🙄

Vitamin/ supplement shots? My work keeps offering monthly “clinics” where a vitamin shot guy comes out and you pay him hundreds of dollars to get a b12 “energy boost” or a “weight loss support cocktail” which is just semaglutide

Griftiest Grifter has to be GoLo - I could not escape those TV ads and I can't imagine how much money they raked in from older folks who still trust TV commercials.

For weird/obscure weight loss trend I can’t get over AND griftiest grifter I nominate “IDLife”, a Christian, diet supplement, MLM (the 3 horsemen of the apocalypse) based out of Texas. A friend became and ambassador for them this year and it’s a wild grift with cult-like vibes.

Weird wellness trend: putting balsamic vinegar in water and saying it tastes like coke. This was all over tik tok and Instagram!

Weirdest wellness trend: water fasting Griftiest grifter: I know he’s not so much into the wellness stuff but that’s gotta be my boy Elon Musk

In the obscure category, my department chair recommended something called Oscillococcinum to us before Thanksgiving break. I looked it up, and apparently it's made from the heart and liver of wild duck?! She also hyped up liposomal vitamin C, and the first study I was able to find about that was on ELEVEN people. I'm trying to figure it if she is getting wellness advice from Alex Jones or something if she's recommending these obscure supplements but won't wear a mask while her husband is being treated for cancer.

Worst Wellness Take has got to be either that article from I think the Jerusalem Post about using the stress of war to lose weight, or the TikToker documenting the hardship of making gluten-free bread for the IOF.

I don't know, but the semi-weekly headlines in the NYT and WaPo extolling Ozempic were definitely the 2023 trend that made my head hurt the worst.

How about ~*preventative Botox*~? I'm sorry but I refuse to believe 24 year olds need to be getting Botox to "prevent wrinkles"

OK, this is niche, but a shout out to the Twin Flames Universe cult food plan - Divine Dish (https://divinedish.org/ - though don't click this unless it's for research haha...don't want to give them the traffic). There's an Amazon and a Netflix doc about Twin Flames Universe, and the meal plan isn't mentioned in too much detail, but it seems like most people gain weight on it? Anyways, they are dangerous grifters that try to exercise total control over their followers (including pushing people to transition genders). They claim they can cure anything. I'd put this in the griftiest grifter or obscure wellness plan categories. Here's an excerpt from their website: "Divine Dish’s mission is to support your spiritual life through food and to help you deepen your relationship with food & your body. You won’t ever have to worry about not eating enough, binge eating or malnourishment. Divine Dish provides you with professional chef curated gourmet quality meals that you can cook for yourself and your family. When you invest in Divine Dish you will only ever feel spiritually, mentally, physically & emotionally fulfilled by your food."

Guys, I’m so sorry but we’ve gotta talk about the tiktok overnight feet onion cure

The whole “Huberman Husbands” thing deserves a nod somewhere. Obsessively thinking you’re the core problem ain’t just for the ladies anymore, yay? /s

Obscure Wellness Trend: Chlorophyll. Apparently is "cleanses the blood" and can fix all those pesky problems like acne and sunburns and anemia and cancer. And, of course, weight loss. Rub some plant juice on it!

I’m not sure what category this would go under, in previous years it would have been weirdest diet trend, but I keep seeing ads for something like “way better” where people claim the app paid them $400 or whatever to lose 20 pounds, and then ad roll plays about how gameifying weight loss makes it easier to “stick to your goals.” It’s everywhere and I hate it.

Oh hallelujah!! When you posted your ozempic post-game episode, I was so afraid we wouldn’t get the 15th annual grifties! I love these episodes and I’ve listened to the previous ones over and over. Thank you!

Worst social media/influencer take: maybe Liz Seibert shaming nutritionist Abbey Sharp for relying on anti-depressants. And she just all-round seems to have some weird food things going on - I think she’s doing the gaps diet but I don’t know what that is? And she talks about ketosis a lot

Nominating the YouTube Shorts/Tik Tok algorithm as the griftiest grifter, because seriously, you watch one totally normal, non-griftie cooking short and it then tries to send you a gazillion videos about weird diets and weight loss...

Weight Watcher's CEO says "sorry we made you feel like you're the problem. You're just diseased." https://www.cnn.com/videos/business/2023/11/21/weightwatchers-weight-loss-drugs-obesity-me-contd.cnn

What’s up with colostrum?

birth control misinformation has been pretty terrible this year. i went off it for my own personal reasons, but so many act like you’re putting a gun to your uterus if you take BC 😂

Weirdest Wellness Trend: Gillian Anderson's branded "g." (that's G-spot) functional wellness sodas. Where a very specific type of superficial sex positivity meets the appropriation of Indigenous medicines... Honestly, my heart broke a bit over this one. 😖

Biggest scandal: The National Eating Disorder Association's attempt to use large scale computing (AI) as a cost-saving measure so they could fire actual humans and instead traumatize people because TECH IS NOT NEUTRAL OR UNBIASED. Who would have thunk?!

I don't know if this is new this year, or a reflection of my age, interest, and search patterns, but I am seeing a lot of supplements for women going through menopause that all seem pretty grifty. AND, almost all of them assume that my main concern as a middle-aged woman is weight gain. Here is a good example that lists a lot of the heavy hitters: https://www.vogue.com/article/menopause-supplements-perimenopause-symptoms. This one comes up a lot in my feed: https://store.happymammoth.com/#. Personally, I have all these symptoms, and when I see an ad that's like "END YOUR PAIN!" I sometimes click through it because I really want for there to be something that will help me (aside: I am hoping to go on hormones next week). Then I click through and it's telling me it will help me lose weight, and heal my gut, and all the bullshit, and I remember that there is no quick fix, and also know that there are lots of women who probably try it.

Bro science in general is terrible for society as a whole, but my vote for the biggest scandal is that douchebag Liver King, who claimed to gain his body and "health" through his own self-described "Ancestral Tenets." This means only eating raw meat, not using sunscreen for "natural vitamin D production," not really bathing or using deodorant, and of course, NOT using steroids to get his big blow-up big-boy muscles. Only for emails to his nutritionist to leak where it was revealed he actually spent $12k in steroids per year.

Bryan Johnson’s absolutely bananas quest for eternal youth/immortality!!!! with his “penis rejuvenation therapy” and using his teenage son’s blood plasma. honestly, he needs his own episode from https://time.com/6315607/bryan-johnsons-quest-for-immortality/ During that time, he’s spent more than $4 million developing a life-extension system called Blueprint, in which he outsources every decision involving his body to a team of doctors, who use data to develop a strict health regimen to reduce what Johnson calls his “biological age.” That system includes downing 111 pills every day, wearing a baseball cap that shoots red light into his scalp, collecting his own stool samples, and sleeping with a tiny jet pack attached to his penis to monitor his nighttime erections. Johnson thinks of any act that accelerates aging—like eating a cookie, or getting less than eight hours of sleep—as an “act of violence.”

Oooh the weird make up things and "clean girl" trends this year like

Somatic Stretching to "release trauma". I had never heard of this but one of my clients (I am a personal trainer) mentioned it as something she was looking into since events of the last few years have taken a real toll on her physical and mental health. Supposedly a few minutes of each stretch can potentially make you start to sob uncontrollably from the release of trauma within your body. Well, huh, that sounds dramatic. So I looked further into the claims. From the few short clips I could find for free, these supposed wonder stretches were overwhelmingly traditional hip openers taught in any yoga class and a few other stretches (also from yoga) mixed in. I'm sure the sellers of this practice would claim its so much more but shockingly [meaning not shockingly] when I went further into the biggest purveyor's "questionnaire" it almost immediately turned from "releasing trauma" to claiming weight loss. Despite my answering I had no need/desire for weight loss, the entire program was built upon the claim that by releasing "trauma" will cause the pounds to just shed away. Look, people (women in particular) generally do carry a lot of tension in their hips so hip opening stretches can often feel euphoric. Its a similar effect with many other deep, calming stretches which is one of the reasons yoga remains so popular and why I incorporate a lot of them into my clients' programs. But in my opinion, to claim that by paying for a monthly program you will release past traumas and just shed weight is one of the most disgusting and predatory things I have heard about in a while. My client provided an instant example of the insidiousness - she honestly had high hopes that something could really help her brain and body to recover and was sincerely devastated to learn that is was mostly just a pay as you go weight loss scam.

Not sure if this fits, but I saw an obscure trend on TikTok of people suggesting consuming a ridiculous amount of carrots daily to create a faux tan. Basically your skin turns orange from excess beta-carotene, although some people claimed it made them look jaundiced.

How about the full body MRIs for NO reason, Thanks Kim K. I recently had a friend who was like, "oh there's a growth on my pancreas" and we were all like, "OH MY GOD! Are you okay?" When we asked him what his symptoms were and what the outcomes were he said he didn't have any and it's completely benign. Turns out he had a full body MRI scan just... to waste money? Because he can? And they found it and he went on to have like multiple other scans, biopsies and specialists appts. Quickly my sympathy turned to a MASSIVE eye roll.

The obsession with continously glucose monitors The diet from the twin flames cult Carnivore diet

I feel like this could fit into a myriad of categories, but I would like to nominate the couple from Twin Flames universe and their "Divine Dish" food plan. On top of all the other bananas rackets they are pushing, they also sell an eating plan that is "food for god-consciousness". Weirdly enough, it's not a weight loss diet but encourages participants to eat heavier meals to feel more grounded to earth and in their bodies. "During Escaping Twin Flames, one former member of TFU talks about the meal plans. She says all the food is carb and red meat-heavy. The point is to make you “feel heavier” so you can stay present in your body. After being on the diet for about 7 months, she approximated she had gained 70 lbs. Many of the other members had also gained significant amounts of weight and developed health problems like diabetes. I don’t care if people eat junk food, but it is not right to market something as “balanced eating” when it clearly isn’t. "

A wellness trend I’ve hated/ fixated on this year is Hormone Detoxing! I’m a Sex Educator and the amount of people stopping or refusing hormonal birth control due to online misinformation around hormones being bad for you is astounding. And then they sell birth control detox supplements to “detox” your body of the hormones and “cleanse the uterus and liver” Dr. Rose Marie Leslie covers the misinfo around this and more!

Worst wellness take/trend for me has to be Sunscreen Truthers. I think Liver King is a big proponent of this but I see a lot of tiktok wellness girlies also mentioning it, along with things like "stop wearing sunglasses so your eyeballs can absorbs vitamin d and then your skin will produce the right amount of melanin for your environment and you won't need sunscreen."

Weirdest wellness trend: laying on the ground to get the earths energy. It probably has a proper name, but I don't know it. My parents get sucked into every insane wellness trend. I know my mom kept getting bit by ticks from laying in the grass. They also are putting copper wire around a rod and putting it in the ground to save dying trees. 🙄

For weirdest I was fascinated by the bariatric cruise Tiktok drama. I think the cruise was put on by baridiaries and it was a disaster. But also completely fascinated about just the idea of the cruise even if it would have been a “success”.

Oh another one: pharma companies who don‘t give up their patents and then once there are shortages or they cannot keep up with the demand they‘re like „oopsie daisies… well we‘re definitely sure that we‘ll maybe know soon when they‘re back in stock“

The griftiest grifters of this year were all the people who patronizingly told me to take some time and take care of myself but then constantly asked me for favors for free and also didn‘t do shit when it came to structurally ensuring that people like me (disabled and queer) don‘t get drowned in this shit fucking failed experiment of a society :)

For obscure wellness, I really enjoyed reading about the potato diet. It’s just a monodiet, but there was an interesting self selecting and reporting study where people were able to lose 10lbs or something in a month. Yeah, right. The people involved seemed convinced they were solving obesity.

Reiki for horses and dogs is pretty grifty

ZOE - continuous glucose monitoring for all https://zoe.com/continuous-glucose-monitor

The absurd amount of mushroom “coffee” I’ve seen advertised on FB that will supposedly fix gut health, reduce inflammation, give you energy, and probably fix your back pain. Mushrooms are great, but maybe in a stir fry. Certainly not as a fix all for whatever wellness buzzwords the masses are currently fixated on.

I feel like the “eating different things based on the time in your menstrual cycle” trend is pretty weird. I’m sure there’s reasoning behind it with hormones, etc, but it feels so nitpicky and rigid!

Digestive breath testing the science is shaky

Castor oil is the one weird trick for everything! Put it in your eyes, in your belly button, on your tummy, in your food! Poop yourself inside out, it’s good for you!

I’m not sure where this fits but I signed up for the class action lawsuit against Noom for their automatic subscription renewals practices, and I keep getting money randomly? I received $181 last October and just received an additional $19 yesterday. I find this hilarious. Big fail for Noom, literal win for me!

Biggest Public health victory of 2023: Taylor Swift release of 1989 (taylors version) and the Eras tour... improving the mental health of millions of swifties worldwide

Worst wellness take from a celebrity: Sharon Ozbourne on Ozempic

Griftiest grifter of 2023: Elon Musk

Mindbank AI is the weird obscure wellness grift I can’t get over. It’s one of many startups trying to go at this “live forever” angle through AI, but their approach is through journaling and conversing with a chatbot about your feelings. It’s framed as a mental health service that will eventually be able to create a digital replica of you once you’ve given it enough data.

Apparently we all need to cleanse ourselves of “parasites” now? So many grifters glomming onto this one. As a nurse, I want to scream. If you ask WHAT parasites they mean, they never tell you specific species. Excuse me are you talking about roundworms? Giardia? Toxoplasmosis? WHAT PARASITES. Worst of all I see it popping up sometimes in previous safe spaces for autistic people and parents of autistics as “helpful for behavioral issues”. BARF.

Behavioral healthcare apps trying to use AI/machine learning for counseling is absolutely ghoulish and made me want to puke this year.

I’m just astounded that people are still so fixated on their protein intake and increasing protein in their diet when Americans get more protein than necessary on average.

For weirdest/dumbest wellness trend: SEED CYCLING. Imagine you have a legitimate OBGYN health concern and doctors have no answers for you and the medical establishment isn't even interested in researching your ailments. What's next, you might wonder? Well, it's 2023, so apparently that means all the women in your life tell you to eat ginormous spoonfuls of specific seeds at different times of the month to "balance your hormones." I never thought I would be saying this in 2023, but eating a diet of birdseed is not an acceptable substitute for quality women's healthcare. Unfortunately this seems to be largely a woman-to-woman grift: why do we push this BS on each other?

Oh oh I don't know what category this is, but how about Planet Fitness offering a discount for Optavia despite the fact that it's a diet so low in calories that they warn you not to exercise?? P.S. I would go nuts over an episode on wellness/weight loss MLMs!!

I'm no Methodology Queen, but my father-in-law sent me this video and the red flags threw themselves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z03xkwFbw4 "What is the best diet for humans? | Eran Segal | TEDxRuppin"

IMO biggest victory has got to be the NY City Council approving a bill banning employee discrimination on the basis of weight and height

weirdest wellness trend this year: ok I know you don't like to talk about stuff like this but suddenly coffee enemas were everywhere this year? And it seems so unpleasant and a waste of good coffee and my god the potential side effects. I thought we left this one behind a decade ago. Also: the raw milk thing

still waiting for the long promised “NOOMisode” but i’ve been getting targeted ads for noom for years and recently they started giving me ads from noom saying they can prescribe me weight loss drugs (ozempic etc). i know y’all have had it up to your pits in ozempic discourse but would love to hear the noomisode or at least hear your thoughts on noom trying to sell me fucking diabetes medicine

Weirdest wellness trend: artichoke water

I’ve been really interested in the last year+ in all the tech startups built around Ozempic and other GLP-1s that have been preying on people in this unregulated gold rush era. Nomination for Griftiest Grifter: Calibrate weight loss. Calibrate (which for awhile was every other ad I saw on Instagram) has a very Theranos-esque rise and fall, and they’ve hurt a bunch of people in the process. Their deal was: sign up for our $1k “metabolic reset” program and we’ll guarantee you access to these meds and give you coaching. Then they grew too fast, stopped replying to their members who needed refills on meds, and did two rounds of layoffs (firing most of their coaches). The company is like a zombie though and has recently received more funding and I guess has a contract to provide weight loss drugs and programming to FedEx now? The subreddit r/calibrateweightloss is WILD and more recently there’s this which summarizes the bumpy ride pretty well: https://www.businessinsider.com/weight-loss-startup-calibrate-patient-complaints-refunds-2023-9?utm_source=reddit.com

Weird celebrity take- that billionaire obsessed with anti ageing and living forever who used his sons blood as a 'treatment', among other things ?

I have been weirdly obsessed with the trend of “EMF-reducing devices”. These range from simple stickers that you put on your phone (ranging like $6-$100) to these absolutely bonkers $5,000 (yes, 5 THOUSAND dollar) devices (check out Somavedic brand). The science is all complete nonsense, I’ve spend hours digging around in these websites “science” sections and it never ceases to entertain (for context, I’m a former chemist and current epidemiologist). TBH, the science on EMF and health is all over the place, but I can guarantee you a crystal pyramid is not going to help. Anyway, that was my weird obsession in 2023 😂 hope you find it as interesting as I did!

My husband is thoroughly entrenched in weird wellness/ bro science YouTube. He's currently on a 96 hour water fast, followed by a 48 hour bone broth fast. The men in scrubs in the videos say that it's healthy and good, but his skin is grey, he doesn't have the strength to carry our daughter around, and he's a very hangry man. I don't see how it could be good for anyone. I feel like bone broth and intermittent fasting are both cultish. Definitely a trend.

I don’t have a contribution to make, but after reading all these comments I am SO happy to have reduced social media use and mainly follow animals that “talk” using buttons now.

Weirdest wellness trend: carnivore diet! Also, I’m sure this has been requested a ton but an episode on Whole30 pleeease!!

Grittiest grifter: Vshred dude. Please please please stop interrupting my YouTube videos. He is the worst. I would love to never see his pitch again.

Weirdest wellness trend - people eating BORAX

Weirdest wellness trend; all this stuff on balancing your hormones to lose weight. "Take this quiz to find out your hormone type!" Yes, yes, you can totally figure that out from an internet quiz. Is a hormone type even a thing?

griftiest grifter - Flav City Bobby Approved list. he drives me INSANE

Weirdest wellness trend: the anti-seed oil fad! I kept seeing it pop up all over (as someone with celiac disease who has to seek out a lot of info on what's in my food, I end up exposed to a veritable charcuterie board of the worst wellness fad talk). Initially thought "eh this is annoying", but later learned it started as a right-wing thing, because of course it did. Public health victory: the RSV vaccine, approved in May! Even though thus far it's mainly been rolled out for people over 60 and pregnant people, to me that's still a win, making it available to medically-vulnerable populations that society often treats as disposable. Oh and for griftiest grifter, Robert Fucking Kennedy (pretty sure that's what the F is for) is the grift that keeps on giving. The man deserves a lifetime achievement award.

Griftiest Grifter: That V-Shred dude. Can I never see him again, please? Also, why is everyone obsessed with ghee? I mean, I know the cooking benefits of it (doesn't burn like butter), but suddenly it has magical health benefits?

I think people were also microdosing bleach on TikTok this year???

WATERTOK. It could fit so many categories.

Also the seed oils thing is wild. It was a plot point on Lessons In Chemistry and she's supposed to be a brilliant scientist and now I'm more confused than ever.

What was the weirdest wellness trend of 2023? Definitely castor oil packs and castor oil in the bellybutton! I saw sooo many tiktoks about this that I started doing it??!? help!

The buccal fat removal thing from earlier this year, idk if that's just this year but I saw it all over Instagram

I saw an article circulating Instagram from an Israeli newspaper that was encouraging Israeli’s to use anxiety about the war as an opportunity for weight loss. I don’t remember what site it was from. I had hoped it was a parody but pretty sure it was being sincere.

RFK Jr. running for president and denying he's an anti-vaxxer even though he's an antivaxxer has to be up there somewhere. His comment that Covid was ethnically targeted to avoid Jews and Chinese people fits in there somewhere as well. A list can also be made of dumb lies about abortion and birth control that have been uttered this year.

Not obsure, but the balsamic vinegar plus sparkling water "equals Coca Cola" videos. Couldn't swipe past. Kept waiting for people to spit take

lilsipper on instagram is such an insidious grifter. claiming she almost died from IBS (??) while actively having an ED and pushing ridiculous recipes and misinformation to her almost million followers. all the while promoting her supplement. she will literally mix cocoa powder and egg whites and call it dessert. her and halfbakedharvest are my roman empire

Biggest public health victory over here was the UK Conservative Party finally being held (somewhat) accountable for their behaviour during the pandemic!

Anything related to the TikTok grifters telling you that vegetables are bad for you and to only eat meat and high fats to lower insulin spikes. Dr Idz does a great job debunking these crazy claims.

I nominate Olivia Hertzog for worst social media influencer/take. Her takes are not unique or original but she has the honor of being the first post to be virally dunked on, in the new social media world of Threads. Congrats Olivia, your ice cold take got our attention. https://www.threads.net/@oliviahertzog/post/CwdugXtplvn/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Alton Brown shilling for GNC. Not the first problematic thing he’s done, but you know he knows better, and is trading on his image as a food authority to hawk dubious supplements

Weirdest wellness trend: Though it dates back to the later 1900s, I’ve been seeing a concerning rise in interest in German New Medicine. It has roots in antisemitism and rejects germ theory. Also could fit multiple categories: the obsession with raw animal products - raw milk, egg smoothies, liver chunks. The scariest is people feeding infants under age one raw milk in place of breast milk/ formula.

Weird wellness trend: parasite cleanses. I have not looked into how true this is but I’m hearing people do fasts or take supplements to cleanse parasites out of your body, and the rhetoric says that literally all of us have parasites and that if you do it right you’ll see the worms in your poop. (I know parasites are a real disease agent but it’s the part where we all have them that feels like a grift to me)

For weirdest trend- it’s a bit outside the normal wheelhouse but anti-aging tik tok. Specifically the weirder things like the anti wrinkle straw and the woman who trained herself to not move her facial muscles so she didn’t wrinkle. Feel this could bleed into last year but it’s just so odd especially because it seems to be targeting women/girls in their teens and twenties and seems to be a mechanism to sell so much weird bullshit. Another weird wellness thing are all the people who decided to eat borax for “wellness” reasons.

I live in Minnesota and am a graduate student in public health policy. I've been grateful for the state legislative session in Minnesota this year! Some big public health victories here include universal school meals for kids, passage of a paid family leave program, continuous Medicaid eligibility for kids under 6, expansion of Medicaid dental benefits, and more. I also got to be involved in a podcast episode at my school about weight stigma! Grateful for both of your excellent work in 2023

Public health victory - pharma price caps on meds for the elderly (insulin!). Small step towards what will hopefully expand to those most in need

I got weirdly fixated on “Bright Line Eating.” YouTube kept recommending their videos to me and after watching a few I was weirdly fascinated by the vocabulary, as well as the bizarre idea that an extremely restrictive diet will “set you free.”

I saw someone on TikTok showing a screenshot of an Instagram story showing this influencer trying to reach hyperthermia to “kill germs, disease and cancer cells”. They were trying to heat themselves up to 42 degrees centigrade. That’s got to be the worst take by an influencer I’ve seen this year.

I got really fixated on the watertok phenomenon. I thought that was a big wellness trend from this year that was fascinating because at first I thought, that’s great! Sometimes it’s hard for me to drink enough water. I think it’s cool people are forming a community and making conversation about how to just get more water intake, make it more of their daily routine. Then as I dug deeper, I saw that it was not just about trying to drink more water and make it tasty or fun as an incentive or anything - it was really about weight loss surgery. The people that comprise(d)? watertok were largely all people who had recently undergone WLS. They needed to drink a lot of water because they had essentially had a healthy organ amputated and hydration is paramount after that procedure. After learning what it was actually about and seeing many people mock watertok, it all just felt so sad. The reasons why people undergo WLS are varied, but amputating a healthy organ to maybe one day achieve thinness, getting mocked for that desire by the same society that tells you to be thin, and witnessing all of that was profound in a way. It felt sinister from all sides. And it all started with drinking water and making it kind of fun.

Grittiest Grifter: I know he’s probs not the worst, but he is the most annoying and punchable: The Liver King. I forget his actual government name and refuse to pollute my search history looking it up. But his whole thing was being super jacked and telling you it’s because he’s a beast working out all the time and eating absurd quantities of meat and of course liver and generally living a “primal” life. And taking loads of his proprietary supplements. Turns out it was steroids all along!

Worst Wellness Take--Not sure, but it has to be Gwyneth Paltrow and Goop. Biggest Public health victory--Just getting medical professionals to start confirming that dieting doesn't necessarily work, BUT THEN--Biggest Wellness Scandal will be Ozempic-- which leads me to the Griftiest Grifter--Oprah and WW.

I don’t think it’s new but all the anti seed oil comments on food tik toks is so odd to me. Also echoing people’s comments about the wild carnivore influencers and people deciding that they’re anti pasteurization??

Are there any health aspects to SBF? I feel like he deserves some kind of mention when counting the grifters of the past year.

Weirdest trend - well, I don't know if it's a trend but it's been popping up on podcasts I like as a sponsor. ZOE is apparently a service which can analyse your "unique gut, blood fat, and blood sugar responses". You do an at-home test and then it tells you what to eat for your gut or something? It just sounded so scammy to me, and I'd already been down a rabbit hole about "wellness tech" and how people look at the gut microbiome for diet purposes. It's giving "skinny bacteria". My weird fixation is all the things people say cured their long covid (with fatigue) or chronic fatigue syndrome. I have CFS (not from the pandemic), and I've noticed an uptick in people talking about all sorts. Some of it might be harmless but ineffective (keto/paleo/Mediterranean diet, vitamin C/D, co-enzyme q10), some will make symptoms worse for some people (any version of graded exercise therapy, CBT), some are classic covid bullshit (hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin), and some are...out-there (nicotine, lion's mane mushrooms, natto, some breathing exercise, hot and cold therapy...). I appreciate these are mostly different things rather than a singular trend, but it's changed a lot of the landscape of the way people talk about chronic fatigue - both in a good way in that there's more awareness and fewer people not believing it's real, and in the way where I've been told I should eat more radishes.

Snail facials for weirdest (or best?) wellness trend! https://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/jan/28/snail-mucus-facials-thailand

I don't know what category this lands in, but Brendan Frasier being "so brave" to play a fat man and winning an Oscar for it.

O Z E M P I C

Weirdest wellness trend: influencers drinking Borax on TikTok Biggest wellness scandal: Weight Watchers realizing no one ever bought the fact they were no longer forced on weight loss, so they doubled down and bought a company that prescribed Ozempic/Wegovy Biggest grifter: George Santos, at least in the non-wellness division. Wellness division: RFK Jr.

i don’t think this really started this year but i’ve seen so much online this year about raw milk??? pls everyone stop drinking raw milk

This is probably because I'm over 40, but insta algorithms keep telling me that my hormones are the reason I am not skinny anymore but that it doesn't have to be that way! 😏

The Scientology girl who sexily(?) eats vegetables dipped in mustard while sitting in her car? That’s gotta be one of the weirdest trends of the year

Weirdest wellness trend - Instagram influencers saying oatmeal is bad for you and toxic for your body...? RFK for the grifter. Yikes.

For most of these categories it would Barbara O’Neil - disbarred from Natropathy and giving advise to clients and all the while not actually having any Natropathic qualifications. Then going in to be and top wellness influencer by telling people a crystal of Celtic Salt under your tongue will cure high blood pressure and give you better hydration. Leading to Celtic salt shortages in the city where I live! She also spruce putting castor oil on a cloth and taping it to your chest to shrink tumors and that cancer is caused by a fungus. She now gives paid talks overseas for money because of her ban in Australia. She has millions of views in instagram and tik tok. I apologise in advance for the amount of strain from eye rolling caused by researching this grifter. She is really out there but highly influential.

The Wellness Way deserves a mention for sure- the promise of health if you follow their strict rules, the idea that “the body doesn’t make mistakes”, even promising women with fertility problems that “they won’t have miscarriages” or other obstetric issues. Very grifty, very gross!

The way I just went “oh fuck yeah the grifties!”

Don’t know what category this falls under but Weight Watchers partnering with Sequence to see WeGovy to “clients” ugh

Something I kept seeing over and over on my FYP were videos touting the miraculous changes they saw after they quit drinking coffee on an empty stomach. There is nothing wrong with drinking coffee on an empty stomach people! The other trend that comes to mind isn't specific to wellness but definitely became pervasive in those corners of social media: "Comment (insert all-caps diet word) to get my meal plan in your DMs!" I hate it here.

Griftiest grifter of 2023: freaking BLUE ZONES. Previously I might have nominated them for the obscure trend, but with the new Netflix movie "Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones" they are mainstream. They take public health money to invade communities with "real age tests" and other inane and condescending bullshit, rely entirely on hollow catchphrases like "making the healthy choice the easy choice" (with recommendations like "put a bowl of fruit on your counter instead of a toaster"), and contribute absolutely nothing but glossy marketing material. They are spreading rapidly. Please TAKE THEM DOWN.

Weirdest wellness trend has to be the whole eat/drink Borax craze on TikTok. WTF?!

I'll be the 20th to nominate RFK Jr. as Griftiest Grifter. My mom who has always been pro-science and had common sense started to echo some common anti-vax rhetoric this summer, and I think it's because some of my relatives bit hard on his schtick and so it's all over her Facebook now, and seeping in, like some terrible form of misinformation osmosis

Biggest public health victory: Danaher agreeing to lower the price of TB tests after a coordinated international campaign: https://www.theglobalfund.org/en/news/2023/2023-09-19-global-fund-stop-tb-partnership-and-usaid-announce-new-collaboration-with-danaher-to-reduce-price-and-increase-access-to-cepheids-tb-test/

I've been seeing a lot of castor oil on my TikTok feed/fyp, promoted as a weight loss supplement and magical cure-all.

Worst wellness take is my uncle who decided this year to start picking weeds from the side of the street to eat in preparation for the coming apocalypse

Worst wellness take for me (assuming this counts!) definitely has to be Cliff Richard telling UK TV presenter Alison Hammond that he missed his chance to take a picture with Elvis because he didn't want to have a picture with him when he was fat.

Also seconding the person who said bryan johnson!!!

Weirdest wellness trend: I keep seeing “carnivore diet” instagram reels where people eat sticks of butter and drink raw eggs. I think those specific activities are probably for post engagement but the whole trend is so weird and feels like an evolution of keto stuff

Also, the altright/crunchy tiktokers who promoted drinking Borax every day!!!Definitely a terrible wellness take and grifty because it’s being promoted as a way to reduce inflammation and joint pain by “detoxifying” the body. Instead people are just poisoning themselves. I also came across a post on TikTok from a mom claiming to treat her child’s cancer through diet ALONE and it had tens of thousands of likes, and comments with people saying they were going to try it. The diet she was promoting was the budwig diet and she made the “big pharma” doesn’t want you to know about it claim and that it’s so effective for treating cancer. The diet has been around since the 1950s so if it actually treated cancer why would people be going through chemo and radiation? https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8PB8GYd/

Obscure wellness trend of 2023 that I fixated on: adding mushrooms to drinks. Why is there mushroom coffee?? How is that a thing?? And why is it $12 a cup? What hath god wrought, here?

worst wellness take HAS to be the anti-sunscreen movement that popped up

Worst wellness take is that fruitarian/raw diet and that influencer who died because of that diet, yet people on social media still promote fruitarianism/raw food only diets: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/zhanna-samsonova-diet-vegan-influencer-dies-b2388656.html

Those IV bars that are basically like smoothie bars except it goes into your veins

A big grift that I would love to see explored is The Spero Clinic. An acquaintance is absolutely convinced it's going to cure her and it's really sad.

Worst celebrity wellness take: Gwyneth giving herself I.V. treatments Worst wellness trend: irritating TikTok influencer types making shouty videos in supermarkets about how murderously horrible everything is based on 1930s-era pseudoscience

Biggest diet flop: Noom. You get given homework, their lessons sound really patronising, like any diet it doesn't work and is a pain in the bum, and it's so expensive

Obscure wellness trend in fixated on is 75 Slow lmao https://www.75slow.com/

Weirdest wellness trend… continuous glucose monitoring?!

Worst grifter - that anti-seed oil guy with his own app. Bobby Parrish. He is so annoying and incredibly misinformed and grifty. He said the quiet part out loud recently when he slipped up and admitted that afforadable food products basically can't be "Bobby Approved." honestly worst wellness take I have seen is the whole "seed oils are poison" thing, but I'm not sure if there are any non-instagram influencers hopping on that trend

Not sure if this counts, but I was just learning about the Panera lawsuit over their "charged lemonade" and it just... really struck me how the marketing was all about green coffee extract and superfoods and "clean energy", and I really think that was what made people not expect the wild amount of caffeine. Like yes, they call it lemonade and list it with the juice and iced tea, but I think there's a fundamental understanding in the public that "superfood" and "clean" mean that something contains no health risks or ingredients they should be worried about (see also: sugar from agave, honey or beets instead of cane). Idk maybe it deserves an honorable mention.

I have a strong suspicion that Andrew Huberman is griftiest grifter https://www.hubermanlab.com/

I'm really proud of how I've curated my social media feed because I've been completely oblivious to almost everything mentioned in this thread.

Not sure if he counts as a grifter or weirdest wellness trend, but I feel like the media would not stop interviewing Bryan Johnson (the billionaire that is taking dozens of vitamins a day and swapping blood with his son to “reverse the aging process”) this past year. In many ways, it ties in to the whole “bio hacking” trend.

Worst celebrity take...Jason Bateman's weird food focus/shaming of his costars on the Smartless podcast and associated documentary. Fun podcast, weird judgemental focus on food and facial puffiness. Some of this isn't new but the doc made his round the clock focus on other people's food choices really apparent and I found it icky. Especially for an entertainment podcast that is not at all involved with the wellness industry.

weirdest wellness trend for me is people getting IV infusions outside hospitals! an IV “spa” popped up in my city. just drink some pedialyte guys!

Also worst grifter - Dr Sarah Jane and spinal energetics in general as the weirdest wellness trend ick !

What was the worst wellness take from a celebrity or influencer in 2023? Taika Waititi endorsing "adaptogen-infused beverages" with his name. https://taika.co/taika-waititi/ What was the obscure wellness or weight loss trend you weirdly fixated on this year? Not really a current trend, but finding out that a bunch of wellness trends have antisemitic roots. Sunscreen truthers, organic farming, basically anything that focuses on "purity." Who was the griftiest grifter of 2023? RFK Jr.

Worst Wellness Trend: weaponizing therapy-speak or misusing it all together

Biggest Public Health Victory: FDA approval of over-the-counter hormonal birth control. This action has still been too slow, and we still won't see it available for a few more years, but I didn't think I'd see this in my lifetime, especially with the overturning of Row v Wade. Hopefully this actually comes to fruition, and no "freedom groups" get in the way.

Weirdest Wellness Trend nomination- biohacking. It's weirdest because of all the gender stuff (it's not just 'wellness', biohacking is MANLY) and because of all the lights/infusions of questionable effect involved

Yaaay, the grifties are back! 🎉❤️

Worst grifter - can Amanda Reilly count?

Biggest victory - new updates on the flawed reality of BMI! Obscure trend - everyone self diagnosing as ADHD as an adult on social media

Grifter? I can’t make heads or tails of Mark Hyman but he gives off grifter vibes

Deliberate hookworm infection for IBS (outside of clinical trials)

This might be off-topic this year but I have a best wellness take! YouTuber/TikToker, author, and influencer Hank Green responded to his Hodgkin's Lymphoma diagnosis by doing some excellent science communication, documenting his experience receiving treatment, and stepping away from several of his other projects (rather than modeling some weird "grindset" mentality). Instead of a cancer grift it was a cancer anti-grift!

Weirdest wellness trend: that gross mushroom coffee like Spacegoods. Also they call theirs dust 🤢 Although it's tied with the anti seed oil nonsense 🤦🏻‍♀️ Worst wellness takes and most obscure: anything from Bethany from Girl defined. She became some weird Christian sex influencer and it's awful Thing I fixated on: Vitamin D truthers. The moment I heard those words I had to look it up and I fell down a rabbit hole 🤦🏻‍♀️ Griftiest Grifter: Liver King

The carnivore grifters. I follow a vegan guy (I’m not vegan so I have no dog in this fight) who debates them and the shit they come out with - I don’t know how anyone believes a word they say. And they are causing real health harm to gullible people (see the carnivore cringe subreddit)

I'd like to nominate Dr Michael Moseley, I think he's been nominated before, but he keeps pushing naff advice and the middle class boomers keep sucking it up.

Bryan Johnson: He's some anti-aging grifter who apparently takes blood transfusions from his son, and is a billionaire doing creepy billionaire things: suggested by one of my mentors who is a huge fan of the podcast!!

Okay, worst wellness take for Aubrey (I'm assuming she's keeping abreast of the Golden Bachelor), I nominate the golden bachelor Gerry whose pre-show relationship ended because he said he wasn't taking her to his high school reunion looking "like that" (indicating her weight).

Worst wellness take has to be celebrities who use Ozempic to loose weight then say it’s from diet and exercise. Weirdest wellness trend is putting mushroom powder in everything/ mushroom coffee (ew), or “slugging” (shudder). Grifters of the year have got to be non medically qualified people on TikTok making viral videos convincing people they have ADHD or other various health issues.

Structured water/water coherency wands (e.g., https://drtomcowan.com/products/analemma-water-wand/). There's no way the people that hawk those aren't in hard on the grift!

Worst wellness take Caroline Dooner going alt-right!

One of the other commentators mentioned raw milk? I have a Bachelor's in Animal Science (from a dairy school) and I did my Ph.D. in mammary gland development, the raw milk trend makes my stomach turn. I've seen a mammary gland with mastitis under a microscope. Nope. Anyways, the Conspirituality Pod Instagram feed had a video of a guy encouraging people to drink turpentine as a "pre-detox" to clean out all the "greasy junk" in your intestines. Yuck. I gave Lumen a try. It was interesting, but I couldn't do all the timepoints they wanted like 30 minutes after I exercised (I was still at the horse stable or driving back from the mountains). You also couldn't do much besides vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free for their diet suggestions. I don't eat vegetables or meat.

I don’t know if this is grifty - but more a trend I noticed. All midsize influencers I follow made a post explaining that they gained a midsize body after having a baby. As if midsize only exists when skinny can’t lose weight after a baby. It’s made it so me, a midsize person from puberty on, only see that my body is okay if I’ve had a baby. I do not want kids. It’s just a trend where I saw so many midsize people post like a before and after as if to say “hey I used to be skinny but this is fine cause being a mother made it okay” bummed me out.

Coffee enemas being EVERYWHERE...like where do I even put this into a category? It's just popping up everywhere.

RAW MILK! That's a new one that totally caught me off guard. As far as griftiest grifter I would maybe put SBF up there, but there have been a LOT over the last three years, Covid really brought them out of the woodwork. Griftiest grift, would just have to be the far right. It's all just fearmongering and has literally no basis in anything. A public health victory Polio being greatly reduced in the world? Idk, I need more victories.

Still waiting for a deep dive into the MLM grifters of Optavia. ( op tah vee ah - for Michael’s pronunciation. Lol

We connected with someone we hadn't seen in years and had them over for dinner. He proceeded to tell us he brought his own beef and that he's on this all-meat carnivore diet. He literally eats ground beef and steak and drinks some special brand of distilled water. I had heard of the diet, because on a sad note, an online fitness celeb, Jessie Lee Ward (aka Boss Lee) who also followed a meat-based, vegetable free diet passed away this year after being diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. Her takes on diet adn fitness were always controversial. That whole story itself is really sad, not as a follower or fan, but as someone wondering how these extreme diets really impact long-term health.

A good wellness trend I've seen is making more options for non-alcoholic drinks available! A lot more canned mocktails and dealcoholized beer/wine have been hitting grocery stores in my area, and as someone dealing with alcoholism, it's been really great to have options that have similar taste profiles to the kinds of alcohol I enjoy, rather than super sweet beverages like soda (no hate to soda, I just prefer a drier beverage).

For biggest public health victory, what is top of mind are the multiple laws banning weight discrimination for housing and public accommodations (NYC as an example). In terms of obscure weight-loss trends, I am fascinated with the #whitepeoplemeal trend in China. It's a fascinating trend as it's intended to satirize boring, cold food. Also, not sure where to place this, but the Almond Mom trend kept popping up in my social media feeds.

The seed oil thing for weirdest trend? What the fuck is that all about

RFK Jr for griftiest grifter!! He continues to say the craziest shit I've ever heard but he's polling at like 15-20%?? Can't say I'm happy for him, can't say I respect the hustle, but I am kind of impressed.

Weirdest wellness trend - ZOE

Worst trend: all of the christian fundamentalist mommy instagrammers jumping onto the raw milk thing. Most obscure: one of the Girl Defined sisters is now a christian sex influencer and it is about as horrific as you’d expect, but in crazy new ways! Lots of youtube video essays on her (Bethany Beal), plus r/fundiesnarkuncensored. The saga ranges from good things like admitting the clitoris exists to fucking horrendous CSA adjacent stuff so take care if you do decide to research this 🫡

Griftiest Grifter Whomever scammed and stole The Scam Goddess Lacey Mosely's Twitter and then sold fake MacBooks to her followers

Fixated on Adaptogens this year. I don’t know what they are or what they do or why I’m drinking teas with them Wellness scandal was NEDA’s Tessa AI chatbot giving diet tips

I’ve been seeing stuff about how Himalayan salt is now trash and we should all be using Celtic salt? I don’t even know what that is but I’m sure it’s more expensive. Also this prime drink that’s basically Gatorade without artificial dyes.

biggest wellness scandal: Gwyneth Paltrow's what i eat in a day being...like literally nothing public health victory: maybe it's because I have a huggggeee public health crush on Brown University but they just got a huge multi-million dollar grant to support safe injection sites. in a time when people are still having a "war on drugs" this feels like a huge harm reduction win IMO

Bobby Parrish aka Flav City is the griftiest grifter!

Weirdest: gym bros/bodybuilders getting really into drinking human breast milk.

I’m not on any social media anymore, so I love that I am oblivious to most of 2023. However, as a psychotherapist, I’m going to say my answer for all of these is people who self-diagnose themselves based on what they see on TikTok and Instagram. Yes, everyone has most likely experienced something traumatic, but not everyone has been traumatized by it. It’s okay if shit did not totally fuck you up!

The Better Help scandals where they shared medical data with Facebook and the therapists were awful to clients were wild! And the sudden obsession with infrared was bonkers too

What about that dumb machine that you breathe into that tells you what to eat because it can tell what your metabolism is doing? I have no idea what this thing is called or how it ‘works’ but it’s obv trash/malarkey/more trash.

Obscure diet: raw chicken consumption. (Some lady on TikTok, naturally.) Honorable mention for obscure wellness/PH: people refusing to vaccinate their pets because “[they’ve] never seen a rabid animal in their life” (because vaccine rates are still in the 80% range and stave off rabies spread). Biggest PH win: mental health coverage push by current WH administration.

One of the wierdest wellness trends is that billionare who was trying to live forever by injecting himself with his son's blood??

Nomination for worst “wellness” idea ever is ozempic and diet drugs for kids (obvs medically necessary uses aside). But for drs prescribing weight loss shots as a “solution to childhood obesity”

I don't know where this fits in because it's not a diet per-se, more of a trend/meme, but my nominee is "Girl Dinner." A group of high school campers at this summer camp I volunteer at were always talking about "Girl Dinner" like it was some sort of justification for not eating or only picking at food during mealtimes. One evening this was also accompanied by "If you drink a glass of water, you'll feel full." It was heartbreaking to hear 14-16 year old girls talk about themselves and each other like that.

obscure wellness or weight loss trend you weirdly fixated on: Slime Mold Time Mold's Potato Diet trials

It's not exactly the kind of thing you normally talk about, but my nomination for " obscure wellness trend you are fixated on this year" is vision therapy! It's basically the idea that you can fix things about your vision by doing exercises with your eyes. The extreme pseudoscience ends of it will tell you that it can fix dyslexia, adhd, and myopia, which is all complete nonsense. The more hotly debated stuff, and the stuff that I am mostly fixated on, is strabismus treatment, since I have strabismus (misaligned eyes). It's pretty controversial among experts whether or not it works, how much it works, and for which types of strabismus. My pet peeve with it is it being recommended to people by optometrists who charge a lot of money for something that insurance basically never covers, and which doesn't have much if any solid research behind it for most people's situations. (I think there's a little bit of evidence that it can help with convergence insufficiency specifically, but my strabismus is actually the opposite - divergence insufficiency - and I still had someone try to give me vision therapy before I turned her down. I also had a co-worker years ago try to tell me to do vision therapy because it would fix my nearsightedness, which is nonsense because nearsightedness is the shape of your eyeball)

I really only know the big players you already cover. I listen to your show to hear about these people. These replies have already been fascinating. That said, Noom should probably win something.

also Mud Water? (mud wtr)

I'm not sure if this counts, but the rampant sale of scam products on places like titkok shop and amazon is really scary, and is happening in the wellness space for skincare, supplements, etc. where people don't know what they're putting on their body, and tiktok just keeps promoting fake products (snail mucin is great example that was a big craze this year!)

In the US, I'd love the biggest scandal to be continued disillusionment with the insurance industry. From my corner of the world, it felt like critiques from people like Dr. Glaukomflecken hit pop culture.

Brad Pitt launching a "genderless" skincare brand to distract from his FBI investigation-level toxic masculinity

I saw something about perineal sunning on the daily show months ago and have been waiting to put that in for the grifties ever since!

Sleep Syncing is also having a big time surge this year

Crystals and products “infused” with crystals. Like do what you want at home but selling lotion “infused” with amethyst as if there are any actual gems in it is kind of a scam

Weirdest/Worst: All the weird (quasi-right wing) boosterism for the rhythm method and hyper-specific diets for the different phases of your period.

Weirdest wellness trend Mouth Taping (taping you mouth shut at night to force yourself to breath out of your nose during sleep)

Our favorite grifter Gwyneth Paltrow on that podcast talking about getting her favorite IVs, doing intermittent fasting, and eating paleo. A runner up is FlavCity on Tiktok. One of those wellness influencers that walks through grocery stores and talks about how all the food is poison so he can sell his own branded foods or products he's heavily invested in. The Food Babe is another one that does the exact same thing.

obscure wellness or weight loss trend: buccal fat removal!

The blue zone shit and the subcategory of wellness rebranding that is Longevity. And the damn raw milk!

Was borax from this year? Eating borax? Also I think there was someone on tiktok saying you could use essential oils to cure your need for glasses?? Absolutely wild

I’d be curious to hear y’all’s take on “adaptogenic” mocktails like Kin

was tucker carlsons infrared balls thing this year? I feel like it was a decade ago

My weirdest take is those TikTok influencers supporting their Fruitarian diet/lifestyle. The amount of fruit they consume is always baffling, and they always look so malnourished and weak. Also second the Raw Milk health craze that a lot of fundies push. Blah!

I'm weirdly fascinated with that Lumen thing where you breathalyze yourself and it tells you to eat carbs or something. Just insane.

Ok maybe it’s just me but I’ve been bombarded with ads for an at home lazer butthole hair remover called Nood. First off, why are all companies spelling their names like that now?! Using two o’s doesn’t make me want to buy the garbage you’re hocking. Second, butthole hair removal?? We truly cannot sink lower. For the love of human sanity, let the ass hairs live. It’s one of the few things we have left that people can’t judge you for when you’re out in public.

I also saw drinks "infused with adaptogens" for sale at the grocery store and it's wild to me that this is mainstream enough to be on shelves like that

I don't know if it fits any of the categories, but my 18year old and I regularly laughed out loud watching Blue Zones on Netflix. Ah, the leaps and assumptions! And the super site-specific things slotting into the Wheel of Musts: Herbal tea! Raw honey! Purple potatoes! Also, can we talk about Dr. Marion Nestle?? (it's complicated!)

Weirdest has got to be eating freaking BORAX. 🤢

Slightly off track but totally freaking me out- the “chronic Lyme Disease” epidemic being used by celebrities to get IV drips at Swiss “wellness/specialty” centres - all a scam to lose weight and get a facelift. There is no such thing as chronic Lyme but the Hadids (Yolanda of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills) and her daughter Gigi is a model) claimed to have chronic Lyme. They will be setting up a grifting “wellness” centre in upstate NY or similar east coast area to sell IVs and blood transfusions. On the other hand maybe this is an episode? Love you! 😘😘

Best wellness trend was the tiktok/instagram dieticians and allergists making those videos that are like "5 things I NEVER eat as a doctor" that then just say stuff like "food I don't like" and "food that I'm allergic to" and end with a recommendation to not worry about the rest.

nominating beef colostrum powder for most ridiculous supplement. I learned about it when a wellness-pilled friend brought it on a river trip. colostrum is for calves!! and cows only produce colostrum for a few days after giving birth, so I can't help but be suspicious of how companies are producing this at scale. of course the claims are that it can cure everything including vaginal dryness

Something I hadn't heard about before this year was cycle-syncing workouts (syncing intense vs light days bases on menstrual cycle, claims also to balance hormones?). On the other side of that I loved Barb with @nondiet_trainer 's response which was like "yeah or just don't do a heavy workout when you're not up to it, it doesn't have to be a cycle thing you're allowed to have tired days even if you don't have a period"

Worst take is easily emrata in those pants. What was that.

John Tesh’s radio show “wellness for your life” was recently syndicated on one of my local radio stations so if I want to listen to good music on my drive home from work now I have to hear him talk about how studies show that walking around your house barefoot for five minutes a day will help you lose weight

Biggest scandal: the liver king guy being on steroids has to be up there Weirdest health trend: Watertok My weird fixation: I am fascinated by carnivore dieters. I follow a page called carnivorecringe on instagram and it’s just mind blowing that people think carnivore is healthy and helping them. Truly baffling and I just keep reading about it haha

Fixated on: Intermittent fasting. Worst trend: intermittent fasting as a cure all.

TikTok keeps pushing the hormone balancing for weight loss after menopause on me. I think it's freaking hilarious that if I balance my horomones (what does that even mean?) that the "belly fat will melt off". I worry I'll look like a candle left on a sunny window. This focus on hormones and how if you eat the right foods, do the right kind of exercise, and get the right amount of sleep (any of this sound familiar?) is going to cure you of your peri/menopause symptoms is pretty freaking hilarous and really fucking depressing because it never ends. Can't I just be fat,happy, and 52 with a little itchy skin and the occassional sleepless night?

One of the worst wellness take I've seen is an influencer obsession with raw milk. Why?!? There's a lot of claims it does something "nourishing" to your gut, what exactly I don't know. Weirdest trend I think is mouth taping. And maybe those red laser masks that make you look like you're from Friday the 13th.

Y'all covered this a bit in the Ozempic episode, but I nominate compounding pharmacies. Those ads are relentless and learning they may not even be the correct combination of the drugs is wild.

Zac Bush MD. Claims that gender "confusion", as he puts it, stems from chronic stress at the genetic level. Also the soil understands itself. Has a solid following here in Australia in the antivax scene. I would love to hear from you on the good doctor

Grittiest grifter has to be the Liver King!

I dont know what category but please talk about tucker carlton’s red light ball therapy/testicular tanning for the love of jebus…

One of my moms (now in her 60s) has really been into Dr. Mercola for years. He's fascinating and a big-time grifter. One thing she learned from him (I believe) that she swears by is this - to prevent getting sick or even stop cold symptoms, she puts hydrogen peroxide in her ears. It fizzes for a bit and then you just tip your head and it all comes out. It has baffled me for years. Do other people do this? What is up with Dr. Mercola?

Probably Borax for weirdest or maybe just one that I was fixated on. The Harmonic Egg could also Definitely go in the weirdest category, though idk how big that really got.

Worst take from The Jerusalem Post: "How to use the stress from the Israel-Hamas war to lose weight" This was a real headline

worst wellness take: hating on OATMEAL. Some influencer was saying that it is peasant food and we shouldn't eat it.

Those Twin Flame grifters have to be the biggest grifters of 2023. I know they're not new on the scene, but the documentary really brought it to light.

My fixation: intuitive eating is just three almond moms in a trench coat

The wellness fixation I actually got behind this year was cottage cheese lol… I think it came from a get a lot of protein diet. I just finally developed a taste for it (with pineapple or jam)

Oh god there are so many obscure wellness takes I’m obsessed with. One I haven’t seen talked about elsewhere is castor oil packing for your liver, where you soak fabric in castor oil and strap it to your stomach and it somehow removes toxins??? I do not understand the mechanism by which they claim it to work.

Also I am late, but I learned about Bee Venom Therapy this year - where people with Lyme Disease keep bees in their bathroom and sting themselves for relief from their symptoms. Which isn't really funny but more just a testament to the nightmare our medical system is to those suffering. Surely we can do better than SELF INFLICTED BEE STINGS

Ozempic, Wegovy, and *checks notes* mouth-taping?

Okay i really really need u guys to make an episode/ talk about this guy on insta Dr James DiNicolantonio https://instagram.com/drjamesdinic?igshid=MmVlMjlkMTBhMg== cuz fr one of my best friends is 100% into his bull* and I cant 😭 I dont even know how to start talking to her about it because she's really into wellness/ fitness/ self improvement stuff, but not even in a "wooh wooh" kind of way. She's a very strong person who has lived through very tugh situations and I guess that mentality got her through it; but she can be sooo demeaning and unwillingly mean sometimes with fatfobic/ ableist coments that are so harsh! That being said she's come a long way in the last couple of yearqs, but this "Dr" seems to be getting her going backwards ableism/fabfobia - wise! Anyways, that's my humble suggestion for any and all of the above. Also the sheer proliferation of this type of accounts on twitter and insta? It scares me so much! Thank you for all u do Mike And Aubrey you have got me through so much stuff ♡ forever grateful!

Scandal: Weight Watchers admitting that the method it espoused for YEARS was insufficient and buying Sequence so they could start prescribing GLP1 medications.

I’m here once again to nominate the raw meat smoothie created by famous bastion of accessibly priced groceries, Erewhon, in collaboration with former Maintenance Phase cameo, Paul Saladino, aka Carnivore MD on socials. Yes, it is a smoothie with raw beef organs in it! And people went and did like tiktoks and reels of them trying it! I nominate this for obscure wellness trend I weirdly fixated on this year. This is my Roman Empire!!

Seed oils MUST be mentioned somewhere in this mess

Oh and the obsession with the "Blue Zones"

Worst take from a celeb : Brian Johnson transfusing his own son's blood in his body to be more youthful?? His obsession with youth and "vitality" is so wrapped up in his mormon upbringing and how they frame death. its crazy to me as someone living in Utah that this man exists but I can see how the culture of mormonism created this monster. If not on the grifties, this man needs a whole episode because of how he is commodifying his obsession with youth and wellness through "Blueprint" and SHARING HIS MOST BIZARRE behaviors on youtube for the world to make fun of.

Special UK mention to Professor Tim Spector…

For Scandal/Trend - the Zoe Health Study/Academy. Started out as a COVID Symptom tracker/research project in the UK and has now ballooned into a wider health tracking fad that claims it can unlock the secrets of your immune system as powered by diet and "lifestyle", and reduce the symptoms of chronic diseases.

Biggest diet flop I would say is Noom. I actually tried it and wasn't impressed. Relatively the same thing as WW just not more annoying with the daily laughs and quotes to help motivate you. I also hated that they call your hunger your inner elephant. Leave my elephant alone.

Grisfters: All the people ripping off ozempic. I mean, what are they actually selling?! Trends: definitely the cold plunging (though it’s been a minute since it started). Also ‘clean my house for my mental health’

Scamanda for griftiest grifter

Does WaterTok count as an obscure wellness trend???

A little bit off course but animal wellness. There are a lot of trends in animal product marketing that seem to follow human wellness grifts. For example, something I fell for this year was pumpkin additive. The package said it was to help firm up your dog’s bathroom routine, but the vet said sometimes people sell it to do the exact opposite and that it’s basically an unregulated supplement. Plus ads that guilt you for feeding your dog kibble or the general trend of feeding dogs raw diets. I just feel like instagram is allowing this to bleed over into animals. Love the show <3

The downfall of Liver King and him admitting to steroids was pretty chef's kiss

Weirdest: those insane "parasite cleansing" kits on tiktok

Gwyneth Paltrow and her bone broth 🙄

Weirdest wellness trend: The Borax Challenge

Weird Wellness Trend that's fresh on my mind after last night's Real Housewives of Beverly Hills - THC inflused multi-course fine dining.

Also echoing other people on the war on seed oils!!

Fitspresso

Weirdly fixated - Raw milk trend?? Have we collectively forgotten about listeria? Weirdest - Borax diet/eating Borax Maintenance Phase alumni - Dave Asprey going hard against OATMEAL? https://www.instagram.com/reel/CvduVr5tTNB/?igshid=ZWI2YzEzYmMxYg==

O o o ozempic. We knowwwww, never believe it’s not so…..

I know the collagen thing has been around for a few years, but I'm still weirded out by it. My sister and I found fish collagen and beef collagen supplement powder at Trader Joe's so you can have surf and turf collagen.

The damning wellness trend is that laziness is bad. That we never need to rest. Production is the most important thing.

Ok people got really weird about seed oils this year??? I've seen a weird amount of grocery store videos with people being mad at like, canola oil

Flaxseed oil as at home Botox! And there was this model who only eats for 4 hours per day, gets her dairy from an Amish farm and takes 30+ supplements named Liz Seibert

Raw dairy has got to be the weirdest trend I've seen this year. There's always some wellness influencer on my explore page touting the "benefits" of it as if it's not super dangerous

Biggest, weirdest wellness trend: Gotta be Semaglutides Obscure weight loss trend: Mustard and Cottage cheese diet Also, can we give a special shoutout to GIRL DINNER?

not sure if this falls under weirdest trend or griftiest grifter but that billionaire guy bryan johnson who’s trying to stay young forever by injecting himself with his own son’s blood is certainly.. something

My hate scrolling/fixation for cottage cheese as the new...cauliflower?

Biggest wellness scandal: Noom and Weight Watchers starting to push and/or sell ozempic! 🤡 Celebrity flop: Emily Ratajowski posing in those plus size jeans for a magazine. 🫠

Perhaps biggest wellness scandal would be that man who is spending millions to “de-age”….

I doubt this is obscure but I'm trying to figure out the deal with ionized water Ionized like irradiated???

You’ve gotten me off wellness insta so I don’t know! Hoisted by your own petard!!!

Maybe an unpopular opinion but Andrew Hubermann is a crank

I dunno if this should be worst or weirdest but drinking or eating cleaning borax as a vitamin supplement because it contains boric acid. I should have been desensitized by people drinking horse deformed during the pandemic but it still fucked me up somethin wild

Jessie Lee Ward. Not sure under what category.

The war on canola oil/seeds oils lol

I feel like this is (too) obvious, but Ozempic as the biggest wellness scandal.

Weirdest wellness trend to me was Sea Moss - you spend like $40 for a jar of jelly-like substance, and the wellness girlies on TikTok just scoop out a heaping spoonful and eat it straight-up every morning. Right out of the jar.

Coffee Enema! What a waste of coffee (and colons).

I think the medical medium really needs to be on here somewhere 🤣🤣🤣 maybe griftiest grifter!?

Obscure wellness trend - mouth taping! Nothing like duct-tapping your mouth shut like you’re trying to kidnap yourself