How much of health is aesthetic?

How much of health is aesthetic?

Every year sees a new crop of health trends hit the headlines: activated charcoal to detoxify your body, moonmilk to help you sleep, smoothie bowls to get all your antioxidants, the list goes on. These trends make for beautiful Instagram shots; they have a serious aesthetic to them that draws us in and tempts us to jump on the bandwagon. You have to wonder; are these things actually good for us or just pretty pictures pretending to be healthy?

Some of these trends really annoy me. Having worked in the health and supplements industry, I’ve had access to research and data that consumers of these products don’t have within easy reach. As new studies emerge all the time, it’s usually very easy to see which trends are genuinely backed by concrete science, and which have no real health backing at all. And there are myriad health blogs and resources online that repeatedly refute the claims made by some of these products—but people keep buying them. Why? I can only presume that’s down to the Instagrammable nature of these ingredients.

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

I recoiled the first time I saw an ad with some model brushing her teeth with an activated charcoal toothpaste—it was horrifying! All that black all over her teeth in the name of whitening them? It didn’t make much sense at the time, and it makes even less sense that activated charcoal could be used to detoxify your body when combined in lattes, pancakes, and even ice cream. Let’s get one thing straight: the only time you’ll ever need to detox is poison control. If you’ve swallowed something poisonous, prescription-grade activated charcoal binds to the substance and flushes it through your system. For the day-to-day stuff, your liver and kidneys have your detoxification needs covered. Of course, knowing this doesn’t stop even me being swayed by the actually delicious charcoal shots found in high-street chains now, but at least I’ll admit I buy them because I feel fancy drinking black shots of ‘health’. You can’t deny the inky colour of some of these foods is enthralling—the contrast between sweet and innocent ice cream with such a deep, dark colour is definitely Insta-worthy. Just remember; it’s more likely to be food colouring than activated charcoal.

The fleeting nature of health trends makes me believe it’s not the health benefits we’re buying into, but the social side. We want to fit in, we want to share in social media culture, we feel better about ourselves if we’re partaking of something wrapped in the pretty bow of supposed health. If it’s good enough for Gwyneth Paltrow, then it must be good enough for me. How much of health is celebrity copy-catting? It seems influencers really do influence everything these days.

Try these things if you want—I know I certainly do—but don’t think a single smoothie bowl is going to make you the paragon of health. Besides, as gorgeous as a smoothie bowl looks, who has the time on any given day to craft that? And how do they stop the fruit sinking to the bottom?